Dimming Light
by hanbanwhite
Summary: 2 actors in 2 completely different places in their lives meet when they are cast to play doomed lovers in a heart-breaking tale of love and loss. As their worlds collide, can they handle the inevitable casualties?
1. Chapter 1 Meeting the Players

**Summary: Isabella Swan is a young, but well-respected actress. Edward Cullen is a complete unknown looking to make his name. They have never met and their lives are completely different, but when they are cast to play doomed lovers in a heart-breaking story, will their worlds collide? And if so, what casualties will be obtained?**

**Chapter 1 – EPOV**

LA. The City of Angels. Yeah right. This place was filled with more sin and sinners than hell itself. I've always hated LA and 6 months of living here have done nothing to change my mind. In fact, I think I've actually grown to hate it more, now that I know so many more things about it. From the smog covered sky to the dusty, traffic-ridden ground, I don't know if it actually has a saving grace. If I didn't have to live here to succeed at what I loved doing, I wouldn't come within a thousand miles of this place. Beneath the glitz and glamour of LA is the crime, the corruption and the unadulterated misbehaviour. This town lost its morals somewhere between the 20's and the 50's and it's never bothered to even look for them again.

I'm originally from Chicago and if the movie industry would take notice of an unknown actor in the middle of the country, I would have stayed there. I spent some time in New York doing a bit of stage acting, but both my agent and my manager categorically told me that every new-comer must do time in LA to make it in with the big boys. That's why I find myself sitting in a small cafe just outside of the centre of LA, sipping on the best coffee in town scribbling little notes on a worn-out script that I had received months previously. My audition for the part was in a couple of hours and I was nervous as hell and still unsure about whether or not I should even go. The auditions had been going on for a couple of hours and this was the penultimate day and I was one of the last to read for the part because I hadn't given the go ahead for my agent to confirm until Friday, last week.

It wasn't that I thought the movie was going to be lame, it wasn't. It was just that I didn't know if I could pull this off without looking like the biggest amateur on the planet. The script was based on a poem written by a very well-known musician published post-humously. At first, no one had a clue as to who had written the piece and I had read it without knowing anything about the author or the supposed story behind it. It was haunting and disturbing and heart-breaking and completely damn epic. It was easily one of the best pieces of poetry written in the modern era and the fact that no one knew who the author was made it even more popular and critically acclaimed. Then, about two years ago, it came to light that the author was quite a famous musician who had died in what had been presumed to be an overdose. That's when the shit really hit the fan, so to speak. There were theories popping up everywhere as to whom he was writing about because there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he had to be writing about his own life. Suddenly, the accidental overdose that everyone had thought to be just another rock star getting heady with excess was suddenly a suicide because he couldn't be with the love of his life. None of this was confirmed, of course, apart from the fact that he did in fact write the poem. Not that proof was something too sought after in Hollywood. If it made a decent enough story and the big wigs of the town could make enough money from it – more than they would lose if a libel case came about – it would be turned into some kind of production. Actually, it had already been made into a TV movie as soon as all the speculation started and it sucked!

This film had been in the works since before the bomb that was the movie of the week a couple of years ago, but it had been pushed onto the backburner because of the colossal failure that was the first attempt. The main reason for the failure, in my opinion was the weak script, which meant that the actors were weak in it. This script, however, was much better, possibly because it had been revised a hundred times over in order for the green light to be given for a multi-million dollar production. Hence why I'm so unsure about even auditioning for the role. With the pressure that must surely be on the production team, they would laugh me out of this town if I auditioned and completely sucked! Hell, I may get such a bad name that I would never find work in this industry again. The highlight of my life would forever be the pilot that I came to LA to film, which was never picked up. How sad!

"Are you still bloody brooding over that script Ed?" I looked up to find my best friend, Rosalie Hale, sitting opposite from me with an impatient look marring her flawless features.

Rosalie worked in the fine establishment I was currently occupying and seeing as there was absolutely no one else in right now, she had decided to give me shit about my indecision – again.

"I'm glad that my best friend is so supportive and understanding Rose," I bit out, sarcasm dripping from every word that came out of my mouth.

"I passed supportive and understanding two weeks ago my friend," she told me, bringing her feet up onto the small table between us. "Probably around the 50th time I heard you moaning about this."

"Whoever said you weren't patient never met you, obviously."

She rolled her eyes at me and put on a stern face. "Look Ed, just get out of your bloody head for once and stop analysing everything you are or aren't going to do. You don't even know if you're going to get the bloody part! Who cares if you suck? It's all part of the learning process."

"Says the girl who's never failed at anything in her whole life!" It came out before I really thought about what I was saying and by the look of utter disgust on Rosalie's face, I had reminded her of the very thing that had brought her to the West Coast of America with me, thousands of miles from her British home.

"You're a fucking wanker, you know that right?" she spat out, standing up, about to walk away.

I stood with her and grabbed her hand, stopping her from getting too far. "You know I didn't mean to say that Rose," I said sincerely. Those memories were not something that I wanted her to replay. "I'm a fucking selfish, insensitive idiot. I'm sorry."

She looked back at me, her eyes still hard and nodded once, telling me that she had forgiven me, but she was still pissed off. I would have been too, had I been her. Rosalie was right. Sometimes, I got so caught up in my own thoughts, in my own head that I tended to ignore stuff around me. It still didn't excuse what I had said to her, but she knew I didn't mean it, knew I wasn't thinking about what I was saying at the time – which really was the fucking problem. I let her go and watched as she walked away from me, but she hadn't even made it back to the counter when she turned around.

"Look Ed, just go to the audition and stop moping. I'll let you take me out tonight for an 'I'm sorry I'm a self-absorbed prick actor' dinner and celebratory drinks."

I smiled at her, walking over to hug her. Rosalie was bloody unbelievable and I was reminded pretty much every day of why she had become my best friend. She rolled her eyes at my dramatic display of affection and pushed me out of the door, saying good luck as she shut it behind me quite forcefully.

A man just about to enter the small coffee shop looked at Rose and then at me with jealousy in his eyes. I knew that look well. I had seen it in the eyes of literally thousands of guys whenever I was around Rose. It was a look of 'how the hell did you get lucky enough to get her?' A lot of people assumed that Rose and I were together, especially because we live together, but nothing could be further from the truth. There has never been anything but friendship between myself and Rose, which isn't to say that I don't find her attractive. You'd have to be dead not to find Rose stunning with her long blond hair, piercing blue eyes, perfect model figure and legs that seemed to go on forever. She was the epitome of Californian beauty...except she was actually from Brighton, England. I had met her 5 years ago when I backpacked around Europe after finishing high school a year early. England was my first stop and when I met Rosalie, I found myself travelling through the rest of Europe plus one. The girl had a wicked sense of humour, a taste in music to rival my own and she knew how to fix a car like most people knew how to breathe. The only thing about Rose was that she was also constantly attracted to – and attracting – the wrong type of guy. I can't even count the number of times we've had to sprint away from a bar – or the number of times I've nearly been arrested because of her. Still, I wouldn't trade the girl in for an easy, quiet life. I mean where's the fun in that right? Besides, I don't think anyone else could tolerate my tendency to over-dramatise and over-analyse everything I do. I would go as far as to say that I was slightly paranoid – Rose would say that I was 'fucking insane' and 'bloody neurotic'.

*

**BPOV**

I looked around, checking to see that no one had seen me sneak out of the audition room and down the hall to the back exit. Thankfully, everyone else was busy looking for the next guy that was supposed to show up and read with me, or congratulating the previous guy on his 'good performance'. If good these days meant that it sucked harder than a vacuum. I had been reading the same lines with apparently the same person for the past two and a half weeks and I was absolutely sick of it. Well, okay, they weren't the same person, but they all blended into one. Not a single actor had given me anything to work with, to play off of. Instead, they all sat opposite of me, thinking more about how to look broody and dark than thinking about the part. What made it all even worse was that not a single person had ever read the poem on which the film was based. I had been very close to hitting one guy who thought they were doing the film from the shitty little excuse of a Hallmark film that came out a couple of years ago. If Sue hadn't walked in to start the scene, I would have had a very sore hand and a lawsuit.

I was now sneaking off around the back of the small, non-descript building to have a cigarette, which was something I had promised my boyfriend and my parents that I would quit doing. Yeah, as if. With all the stress that I was going through just reading with these idiots, it was a miracle I wasn't going through a pack of twenty a day. I was trying not to let Sue or Alice see me puffing away on these little white sticks because they would undoubtedly feel the need to tell Jake about my continuing habit. That was one of the major disadvantages of doing a film with people that knew you and your significant other. I couldn't really do anything without it getting back to Jacob somehow, even if it was a passing comment over dinner. Not that I hid much from him, but he had never liked me smoking and I had been promising him for a year solid that I would quit. I just didn't want to start now...maybe after the movie was done filming. I inhaled deeply on my slim cigarette and let the smoke ease its way down my throat. There was nothing better than the first puff of a cigarette, especially when you shouldn't be having one. I felt my heart beat slow and my breathing became deeper, as I tried to get the smoke to reach down to my toes, not just the bottom of my lungs.

My mind cleared of the buzzing that had been there since I first came face to face with this morning's load of thoughtless morons. I had been acting since I was ten and I loved my job, but I hate the people that it attracted. A lot of people, in LA especially, wanted to be famous and they thought that acting was just a way to get there. I hate the idea of fame, the obsession with celebrity that society has now. I think it's watered down the craft and there are so many people in the industry who think that acting is just memorising some lines and trying to look good on the big screen. I hated that and I hated the people that were so obviously here to see their name in lights. I think that was why I had more or less steered clear of big-budget films. I liked working with people who loved acting, who had a thought in their mind that didn't die of loneliness, but huge studios wanted huge celebrities, never mind if they couldn't string two words together if someone else didn't write them down. However, I made several exceptions. I had worked on a big studio film in my early teens because it had offered me the opportunity to work with one of my favourite actresses, someone I had looked up to since I knew what a role model was. Then there was this role.

Sue Clearwater was a friend of Jake's. She had directed him in one of his very first films and he spoke very highly of her and the way she worked. He had told me that I could learn a lot from her about how to work within the industry, work the industry and still be true to who you are. I had taken slight offence at this, seeing as I thought I was doing a great job all on my very own at keeping my morals, but I dampened down my bitch reflex and agreed to read for the part. When I read the script, I felt this huge compulsion to do the part. I had read the poem and I had loved it from the very first moment I laid eyes on it, but I had also seen the film and I knew how bad things could go. However, although not as dark as the poem – they had to make it appeal to a mainstream audience after all – it had the same depth, the same character and I found that I absolutely could not let anyone else play Kristen. I had to be her, I had to tell her story, and I had to be her voice. I called Sue up and practically begged for the part, to which she laughed at, confessing that she wasn't beyond bribing me to do the part had I even thought about turning it down.

Right now, I was having second thoughts about playing the role of Kristen Stewart, half of the doomed couple being depicted in this screen play. The film would absolutely not work unless the right male lead was cast and so far, no one had been anywhere near right. In fact, they were so far off right that they could have been auditioning for any role in the film other than Rob and would have been a better fit – even my own. As much as I wanted this role, as I wanted to be the one to bring Kristen to life, I didn't want to do it in a film that sucked. I wanted this film to do well, to tell the story that should have had a much happier ending and I wanted to do that with someone that cared just as much. Which meant really, that they had to have read the poem and so far they were batting zero for fifty-eight.

I inhaled deeply for the last time, wishing that cigarettes were longer so that they'd last longer, but knowing that I'd smoke just as many anyway. I had just stubbed out the butt with my sneakers when the back door opened and Alice burst through in her typical graceful manner. I didn't even have time to step out of the cloud of smoke that still hung around me before she came before me, her delicate nose scrunching up at my disgusting habit. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. People who didn't smoke were so damn judgemental about the whole thing and sometimes I really wanted to give them a piece of my mind. I bit my tongue though, not only because Alice would no doubt tell Jake if I bitched her out after only two weeks of knowing her, but also because she couldn't help it. Alice Brandon was the stereotypical Californian girl, minus the blond hair and blue eyes. She was all about keeping fit and living a healthy lifestyle, which meant absolutely no puffing on a 'cancer stick'.

She smiled brightly at me, trying to hide the fact that she wanted to gag at the air around me. I decided to follow her lead and ignore what I had obviously been doing here. If we became friends, maybe she would help to hide the fact that I was still smoking from Sue, which meant that Jake wouldn't hear a word of it. Alice and Jake had been friends for a while themselves. They hung out in the same circle, having both been in two of Sue's more famous films when they were young. They were the same age and pretty much grew up in small Californian towns next to each other. I had been introduced to her briefly before we were both cast for the film, but I don't exactly take to new people well. I find that I can't make small talk. I have absolutely nothing to say to them and because I don't numb their minds with whatever is crossing mine in that instant, they all think I'm being stand-offish and a bitch. This is probably the reason that Alice and I barely knew each other even though she and my boyfriend were all pally.

"Sue's looking for you," she told me. "The next guy is here and she's all excited about him. She wants to talk to you about changing scenes."

I rolled my eyes when she told me about the next guy. I had barely had ten minutes of peace and now the buzzing noise was back in my head. Alice, I'm pretty sure anyway, was telling me about how good looking the next auditionee was, but all I heard was that he was another pretty boy with nothing going on above neck level and the buzzing became almost chain-saw like in nature. It would have been more interesting, and probably a hell of a lot more promising if the next guy was ugly. Although Rob was actually the very definition of sexy rock god, it seemed as if that was the only requirement for this audition so far. Apparently it didn't matter in Hollywood if you didn't even have the brain capacity to tie your own shoe-laces in the morning as long as you had an artificially dimpled chin, almost fluorescent white teeth and a weekly appointment at a tanning parlour. I guess with all the time these guys spent trying to look good, they didn't have time to even find out what an acting class was.

"Sue was giggling at something he said when I left," Alice was finishing her story, her eyes bright and her smile wider than it had been when she first greeted me. "Honestly Bells, I mean Rob was good looking, but this guy..." she trailed off with a sigh and I couldn't hold back an eye roll this time, which she caught. She just laughed at my expression, holding the door open for me to walk through. "Jake doesn't know how lucky he is to have such a devoted girlfriend. It's like you don't even see anyone else."

I smiled tightly and shrugged, choosing not to say anything because I didn't know what to say. I was embarrassed. I didn't think I was a particularly good girlfriend, but in the way that Alice meant, I could see her reasoning. The thing was, I would never disrespect Jacob that way because he was first and foremost my best friend. Even before anything romantic happened between us, he was in my life as my friend and he understood me in a way other people hadn't even tried to before. Our relationship had shifted so casually from friendship to romance that I didn't even notice for the first couple of months that something had changed.

We walked to the other side of the building where Sue had told Alice she would be, bypassing many of the other cast and crew already associated with the film. The part of Rob was the last one to be cast and so everyone else here already had their roles within the production. It was the final couple of days of auditions and I, for one, couldn't be more glad that it was almost over. The only down side was that there hadn't been a single person yet that I would even consider acting opposite of. I was mostly silent on the walk, psyching myself up to hold back my bitchy comments and trying to force my buzzing head into Kristen's mind-set. Alice was not in any way put off by my silence. In fact, I doubt she actually noticed that I hadn't even said three words to her because she was happily recounting the auditions she had done for her last movie and the men that she had screen tested with.

It was strange, the compulsion I had to do this part. I was very different to Kristen in so many ways – at least from the way she was written. It was speculation that the woman on whom the poem was actually based was actually Kristin Stewart, a wealthy heiress well known in the inner circles of Manhattan. She wasn't exactly well known to the world, but in her own circle, she was infamous and ever since her mysterious death 5 years ago at the tender age of twenty seven, she had become pretty famous worldwide. It was hard to really uncover anything about her death. All anyone knew was that one minute she was playing the role of gracious hostess at a summer party in the Hamptons and the next, she was floating face down in the pool of her Hamptons home, her Vera Wang gown billowing around her. The Manhattan elite closed ranks and no one talked about anything to do with that night. It was amazing what you could get away with if your family owned half of the East Coast and had done since the Pilgrims landed.

The link between herself and Robert was tenuous and had all come from a photograph that was leaked just after it was revealed he was the writer. It was the two of them, years before either of them really made an impact on the world in a rather intimate moment, backstage at one of his friend's gigs. It was rather a surprise because no one knew that these two beautiful people had even known of the other's existence, never mind that they could have once been friends. It was all speculation of course and there was absolutely no one that could really verify it. Not that it stopped gossip magazines and websites from spreading their own brand of truth. It all pretty much died down when a magazine was sued for 10 million dollars because of a particularly sensationalist story they had run about the two. The money had gone to charity and everyone had learnt their lesson. I was actually pretty surprised that this movie was given the go-ahead because of all the legal drama, but when I asked Sue about it, she brushed me off and told me that everything was taken care of. I was still a little unsure, but if a huge Hollywood studio was willing to associate itself with this project, then their legal bases must be somewhat covered.

I rounded the corner just as Alice was finishing off telling me about the date she'd been on last night with one of the crew. We both smiled widely as Sue called us over, script in hand and her glasses on the end of her nose.

"Hey guys, I was just looking over the scene we were going to do, adding little bits and pieces to it. I talked to Edward," she gestured over her shoulder to the closed door behind her and then looked at me. "That's the guy you're reading with by the way. Anyway, we were talking about the scene and he had a couple of notes that I think are very valid, so I talked to Arielle and she didn't mind it all trying it out his way to see what it would be like."

I arched an eyebrow, my mind reeling with the news that someone who hadn't even got the part yet was making changes to the script. I didn't know what to say and I couldn't even begin to think about what my face must have looked like. Alice tried to muffle a giggle as she looked at me, but Sue had already turned back to the script and circled a few things, whilst scribbling out some other stuff. By the time she had turned back to me, I had schooled my features into nothing but curiosity.

"Just take a few minutes to read over the changes and go into the room when you're ready. He's under instructions to start when you open the door." She left after that, through the door and I heard her starting to say something to him before the door was closed again.

Alice squeezed my shoulder in a comforting gesture before walking back down the hallway, undoubtedly to find the guy that she had been on a date with. I think it had gone well, but I couldn't be sure because I wasn't listening closely enough to keep up with the way she changed subjects. I looked down at the pages before me filled with Sue's barely legible scribbling. As I gave it the once over, I noticed that it was much better than the original scene had been. It was a shade darker than the first one; much more in keeping with the poem than the actual movie in its tone, but it didn't stand out so much that it was separate from the rest of it. There was a lot less dialogue in the new take on the scene and it really benefitted from that. I was very surprised and slightly thrilled at the fact that this guy had obviously read the poem – he wouldn't have got the tone so spot on otherwise. I read the new words again and then took a few deep breaths as I tried to clear my mind of my own thoughts and replace them with what I thought Kristen's would be. It took a good five minutes, but then I was ready and opened the door to step into the next room.

The light was dim and I heard an unfamiliar slow, haunting melody that was coming from the far corner. I could see a figure, his head bent down, and his fingers falling heavily on the ivory keys. Each note depicted sorrow, pain and I felt my entire being ache as I stood in the doorway, just listening to the melody. Although music was dictated in the script, there had been nothing to indicate what type of music it should be and I wondered whether this guy was playing off the top of his head, interpreting the scene through the notes. As Bella, I was seriously impressed and excited by the possibility that someone had actually come to audition for the part of Robert the tortured soul, not just Rob the good looking rock star. As Kristen, I felt my heart break a little as I listened to the man I loved play through his emotions.

I stepped closer to him and though he couldn't have possibly heard my soft footsteps, he knew I was there because the music got louder, impossibly more tumultuous and confused, but there was an undercurrent of need, of desperation. I didn't know how he was getting the feel of the scene so well, but I liked it and decided that I would give this audition one hundred percent. I was going to raise my game for the first time in the past two and a half weeks. I took a step closer and the music stopped altogether, but he didn't look up and I could feel myself being drawn closer, to make him see me. Even though I was in character, a part of the real me was very curious to see this guy.

"_You shouldn't be here," Rob whispered harshly, his voice rough and low, his fingers ghosting over the black and white keys, but not making a noise._

_Kristen stepped forward, her hand reaching out for his shoulder, but he turned around abruptly and looked up at her. She stopped abruptly, her hand static in the space between them. Her breath caught at the expression in his dark green eyes. He looked as if he was being tortured, like he was in an immeasurable amount of pain. His entire body was tense, as if ready to bolt if she made even the tiniest movement. She felt her heart constrict painfully in her chest and she had to gasp to breathe. She opened her mouth to say something to him, an apology, an explanation, a declaration, but the change in his expression from pained to pleading broke her and she could feel the tears well up in her eyes._

"_Please," he begged in a harsh whisper as he looked around the room, looking at everything but her eyes. "Please just leave Kris."_

_Her entire being ached, but she didn't know whether she was aching to take his pain away by leaving, or aching to take her own away by holding onto him for dear life. She kept looking at him as his head whipped around, refusing to look at her. Without knowing what was happening, without even consciously making the decision, she found her hand reaching out to touch his face, to still his movements so that he would see her. She wanted him to see that she wasn't trying to hurt him, that she would give anything in the world not to be causing him so much pain, but she needed him. It had felt as if she was drowning the past week without him, the world was just one fuzzy, blurry mess that was closing in around her and she needed him to save her. She was selfish, she knew that and if she didn't know that she would shrivel up and die without him, she would have left him and never looked back._

"_Why?" he asked her, implored her even. He was so damn confused. She had told him she needed time, she needed space. She told him that they couldn't do this, that their lives were too different, that their worlds could never collide. He loved her enough to let go of her because tearing her apart was not something he had ever wanted to do. He just wished that she would extend him the same courtesy. She pulled and she pushed and it always came down to the same thing – she would leave and he would once again be left with nothing but memories and more pain than anyone should ever have to deal with. _

"_I don't know," she whispered, her hand stroking his face, feeling the rough stubble that tickled her whenever he kissed her and sent millions of girls around the world positively giddy with want. If she thought that she had missed seeing him, touching him was a whole different experience. It was as if her hand had caught fire, but it had been encased in ice before so the sudden high temperature was a lifeline, saving it. "I love you."_

_He closed his eyes at her words, wishing they were true. Surely if she loved him like he loved her, they would never be in this position. Neither of them would be feeling as if their hearts were being ripped straight out of their chests. Well, that's how it was for him anyway. This past week without seeing her, thinking he had lost her forever was a hell that he had never even imagined in his worst nightmares. She was tearing him apart piece by piece and he was going to let her because he loved her so much that he would rather have any small part of her than not at all. He would have laughed at the realisation that this five foot four, 100 pound girl would eventually kill him, but the situation was not funny in the least._

"_I'm sorry," she told him, stepping closer when he unwillingly nuzzled his face into her hands. "I wish I could stop loving you, wish I could walk away and give you the chance to be happy, but I can't because I __**need**__ you."_

_Kristen took a deep, shaky breath, aware that this was it for them and it was all on her. She could make them or break them and in doing so, seal her own destiny, her own fate, like she had been wanting to do for as long as she could remember, and yet had always been so scared of doing. She dropped her hand from his face and instead entwined it with his larger, calloused hands, marvelling at how well they fit. She had never believed in absolutely being out of your mind in love with someone, so much so that life actually made no sense when that person was not in it, until she had met Rob. _

"_I'm selfish and I'm royally screwed up and I absolutely do not deserve you Robert, but I can't help it. When I don't see you, I feel as if I'm walking around in the dark, just waiting for the lights to come back on. When I don't hear your voice, I feel agitated and nervous, as if there's just something not quite right with the world. And when I don't touch you..." she broke off and stepped even closer to him, leaning up so that she was literally only centimetres away from his face. They were breathing in what the other was breathing out and she found that just so damn poetic at this moment in time. "When I don't touch you, I don't know if I'm real."_

_She breathed out the last part and briefly heard the strangled cry from his throat before she lost all coherence and thought as his lips lightly touched hers. It wasn't hard, or urgent, or filled with lust and want, like so many of their kisses had been. This one was different. It was desperation and need and absolute and total dependency. They both knew that it was completely unhealthy to actually __**need**__ someone to feel alive, to feel real, but that was how it was and neither of them would really have changed it, even if they could. _

"_I don't know how to live my life if you're not in it Rob," Kristen confessed, their lips still touching. _

"_You'll never have to Kris," he choked out, his voice higher than it should have been. Their lips met again in a deep, passionate kiss that poured out all their love. Tears flowed between them, whether it was from him or from her was impossible to tell. Neither did they know if the tears were due to utter, complete happiness or sadness at knowing that whatever they did, however much they loved each other, they needed each other, it would never be enough. They could pretend, and for this instant, they did, but in the end, at the back of their minds, they knew that life would intrude on their small piece of heaven._

*

**EPOV**

"Cut-" Sue's voice was hoarse and low, but it rang out in the still silence of the room. "Cut!" she yelled again, more forcefully, the volume of her voice this time echoing around the room.

I heard the director's voice and I knew that she was in the room, but it seemed as if she miles away or calling out from another room. I shook my head to clear it, feeling as if I was under water with the way my mind was clogged and my body was reacting slowly. I stepped away from the girl in front of me, wondering whether or not she had felt the intensity of that scene, of our connection in that moment, and if she had been just as affected as I had been. I notice that she stepped away at the same time I did, turning her face in the direction of the voice, her brows furrowed, as if she was deep in thought.

"That was..." Sue had walked into the dim light and her face was a mask of disbelief. "I have absolutely no words. That was beyond fantastic. Really, great job guys."

I gave her a small smile, trying to hide the fact that I was over the moon ecstatic that she hadn't laughed in my face or told me that I'd been playing it all wrong, that my ideas were idiotic and I should have just gone with the original scene. In truth, I had been a bit nervous when she caught sight of the notes and changes that I had made on my copy of the script. I thought she was going to ream me out about respect for other people's work and stupidity for coming to auditions showing that you already weren't happy with the material. I mean I was almost completely unknown and I thought she would think it entirely presumptuous. I hadn't even meant to make the suggestions, but she had practically forced me to show her the changes and explain why I made them. I told her the truth because I was so nervous at that point that I figured I had nothing to lose. I told her that I was a huge fan of the poem and I thought that the scene would be better played with fewer words. I told her that in my mind, when I read the passages of the poem pertaining to this moment, I always saw intensity and desperation and I think it would have been better reflected with music. After all, the poet was a musician and if he had really felt any of the things he had written about, he would have expressed them through the medium of music. She smiled at me and then walked away with the script I had been holding in her right hand. It wasn't until she came back with the damn writer that I realised what was happening and I was far too shocked to object.

Sue had convinced me to play the scene out my way, telling me that the audition would work better if I could identify with the moment. I didn't really want to tell her that I would never identify with that moment because I had never felt that kind of passion, that kind of all consuming desperation for another human being. So, that was how I ended up in the room playing a very obscure piece of music written by the author of the poem. I had been a fan of his late stuff, when I started to really understand what music was about and when I got the script in my mail, I had decided to look back at his life and his career, even though I was still unsure about even auditioning for the role. I wasn't sure if I would be able to remember it all, and I didn't, but I had played notes that I thought went with what I could remember.

"What did you think Bells?" Sue asked when she was in front of Isabella Swan and I.

She turned to me and smiled before she answered. "He was great," she praised and I felt myself redden slightly at the compliment. I didn't know Isabella Swan personally, but her reputation as an actress was flawless. The films she had made, although small, were very well critically acclaimed. I had seen a film that she did a couple of years back, wondering who I would be auditioning with, and I was beyond impressed. She was amazing and I was absolutely aghast when Rosalie informed me that she was only 15 when they shot the film. At 15, I was still in High School trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to do with my life and this girl was already making hard-hitting films with some of the biggest names in the industry. It was hard not to feel a little pleased with myself that she had thought my audition was good. I just hoped she wasn't just saying that because I hadn't left the room yet. Maybe she had said that to everyone she'd auditioned with. After all, she was going to have to spend a hell of a lot of time with whoever got the part, it wouldn't do well to tell them they stunk and then have to pretend you're in love with them for three months.

"Wasn't he just?" Sue enthused further. She had just opened her mouth to say something else when her phone rang shrilly, making her jump a little. She looked down at the caller id and sighed, pressing the answer button and simultaneously giving us both an apologetic look. "What the hell do you want now?" was the last thing I heard before the door closed loudly behind her.

"Don't mind Sue," Isabella was said to me, perching herself on the small piano stool that I had been sitting on before. "She's a little bit scatty, but she's an amazing director."

"I know," I grinned, finally able to look at the girl in front of me. It was strange because it was only in that moment that I noticed what she actually looked like. All I saw before were her eyes and the character that she was playing. I saw and felt every single one of Kristen's emotions from Bella's face, but I never once really saw her face. She was gorgeous. Much more beautiful in real life than she had been on screen, but then again she had only been a child then. Hell, she was still pretty much a child now, but for some reason it was hard to see her like that. Probably because she just blew me away in that scene. "Her reputation precedes her, but it's definitely a good one. The same can be said for you actually. Isabella Swan right?"

She blushed a little at my extremely small compliment and nodded her head a little. "You're American?!" She shook her head and ducked it down in embarrassment. "Yeah, but call me Bella. I hate my full name." Bella stuck out her hand and I grasped it, only really just realising how tiny she was. I almost envelope her entire hand when I shook it.

"Edward Cullen," I answered back, squeezing her hand before letting go. I noticed that her hand were extremely warm, so much so that after I had taken mine away, there was still a small trace of that warmth on my palm, which started to run up my arm. "And yeah, I'm definitely from this side of the pond."

"Well Edward Cullen, I meant what I said before," she clarified, grinning at me. "You were absolutely fantastic. That scene was amazing. Exactly how I saw it when I read **'The Dimming Light'**."

"You've read the poem?" I asked, shocked. I noticed her narrowing her eyes and realised that I had offended her by sounding extremely surprised at the fact that she'd actually read the epic piece. "Sorry," I apologised, trying to explain my reaction so that I didn't get on the wrong side of the girl who could potentially be my co-star. "I didn't mean that to sound so –"

"Fucking rude?" Bella asked, her eyebrow cocked up, her face a little harsher than it had been since I had properly seen her and not Kristen.

I reddened, hoping that I hadn't actually really offended this girl that I had only met fifteen minutes ago because I didn't have a filter between my mouth and my brain. It was one thing to piss off someone who knew and loved you, but it was quite another thing to piss off someone you'd just met. Especially if they may have a hand in deciding whether or not you were going to get a job. "Yeah," I agreed with her, not really wanting to meet her gaze because for some reason, this tiny child intimidated the hell out of me. "I just...I didn't mean it to sound like that. It's just I've never met anyone else who knows it."

She chuckled at my rushed apology and I had to look up then, meeting her very amused brown eyes. Brown? I hadn't even registered that during the scene when I was literally millimetres away from them. I had obviously projected the supposed green colour of Kristen's eyes onto hers.

"I was just kidding," she clarified. "You're actually one of the few people who've auditioned that knows the script is even based off a poem and I think you're the only one who's read it."

I joined in her easy laughter, relieved that my foot in mouth syndrome hadn't quite gotten me in trouble yet. I wish that Sue would hurry up so that I could leave before I really did fuck up what I thought myself was a good audition. And just like that, my prayers were answered, as the door opened and Sue came in, phone completely out of sight and just that little bit brisker. She told me once more that the audition was great and that she wanted to see me in a week's time for a second reading. They were going to pick the best five from the entire audition period and then we would all battle it out against each other to get the part. She told me that I had been the best so far, but I knew they still had two more days left and so I was just thankful that I had made the short list. It was at that point that I suddenly realised I really wanted this job.

I don't know when exactly it happened, but I was suddenly in agreement with Rosalie – I would be extremely pissed off if someone else was cast in this role. Even though I had never felt the kind of love that had been written about, I understood that there was desperation and hurt and selfishness in the poem. I wouldn't be arrogant enough to say that I was the only person who had auditioned for the part that did get all those messages, but I would bet that I was the only person who really believed it. Even though I had never experienced it myself, I could easily see how people could fall in love like that. Addictions were a hard thing to let go, even if you knew it was bad for you, even if you wished you could stop.

When the poem came out, a lot of people had merely read it as an ode to a lover and a love that could not be. I had read it as an ode to a destructive love that had been, that still was and that always would be. It was haunting in the way that the writer would seem crazed in points, as if he hated the subject of the poem. I guess in a way he did hate her, but more than anything, he hated himself. He felt guilty for loving her, for needing her, for not being enough and for not being strong enough. It was heaven and hell all rolled up into one – rapturous joy and abject misery. The reason that I loved the poem so much was that it was a whole spectrum of grey – not the black and white that love is depicted as so often.

When I got back to my apartment, Rosalie wasn't there and instead left me a hastily scribbled message that she had stuck onto the fridge.

_Ed,_

_Get your arse down to the bar pronto. Carlisle just got back into town and he's got news!_

I left almost as soon as I read the note. Carlisle was my older brother and for the past couple of years he had been working for Doctors without Borders all over the world. He hadn't spent more than a couple of weeks in the US since I turned 21 and he had loved every single moment of it. I didn't think he'd be home for another couple of months and he certainly hadn't mentioned anything to me in his last email. The bar that Rose had mentioned was one we frequented often. At first it was because it was close to our apartment and cheap, meaning to could get very drunk and stumble back home without having to fork out extortionate amounts of money for a cab. Now that we had lived here a while, a huge part of the reason that we kept coming back was because of the regulars that we now called friends. The bar was named after its owner, Jasper Whitlock, whom I now counted as one of my closest friends. He had given me a couple of shifts there when I first moved here and had absolutely no money because the project that I had moved out here for was suddenly canned.

Wednesday night at Whitlock's were usually quiet, just a few of the locals grabbing some drinks or a bite to eat with friends after work. The atmosphere was warm and inviting and when I walked in, I was greeted with hellos from a number of people who I stopped to talk to for a little bit before moving on to try and find Rosalie. We usually sat in the back room, which was decorated a lot like an English pub – a quirk that Rosalie absolutely loved. When Jasper met her, he immediately brought her into the room and told her that the place was hers whenever she wanted because she was like an authentic piece of Britain dropped into his bar. She had taken him up on the offer, glaring at any unsuspecting person who would dare sit at our usual table. If we hadn't been friends with the owner and most of the staff, I'm pretty sure that Rosalie would have been banned from even entering the place.

I saw Rose's honey blond and platinum head shaking as her throaty laughter rang out through the small, almost empty room. She was sitting opposite of the very familiar light blond head of my older brother. However, sitting next to Carlisle was a head full of caramel tresses that I most definitely had not seen before and as I got closer to the table, I noticed that my brother's hand was casually intertwined with this new woman's. I cleared my throat when I got next to the table, which made them all stop laughing and look up at me.

"Edward!" Carlisle greeted, standing up and letting go of the unknown woman's hand so he could hug me. "You're finally here. How was the audition?"

I laughed as I sat down next to Rose and opposite the woman who still hadn't been introduced to me. She was looking at me as they all waited to hear my answer. "It was great," I said honestly. There wasn't any other word to describe it without going into the details and right now was not the time for me to wax lyrical about the audition. Right now was time to find out why my older brother was home and why he was with a strange woman that not only had I never met, but was pretty sure I had never heard of before. "But what we should be talking about is what the hell you're doing in the good old US Carlisle."

Carlisle lifted an eyebrow and smirked at me in a very familiar expression – one that I saw back in the mirror on a regular basis. "Good to know that you missed me little brother. Really feeling the love."

I rolled my eyes and took a gulp of the beer that they had thoughtfully ordered for me. "And people say I'm the dramatic one," I dead-panned. "Seriously, I thought you weren't going to be back for another couple of months."

He shrugged, putting an arm around the still unknown woman. Well, unknown to me at least. He looked at her and smiled, an expression on his face that I had never seen there before. "I wasn't, but plans changed." He gave her shoulder a small squeeze and then picked up on of her hands that had been on the table and intertwined their fingers again. "Edward, this is Esme. Esme, my little brother Edward, obviously."

The woman tore her gaze from Carlisle and met my eyes, smiling at me shyly. She held out a free hand to me, which I took, a little surprised at the way Carlisle was with her. "Nice to meet you Edward," she said, her voice soft, but confident. "Carlisle's told me so much about you."

I took her hand and shook it briefly, glancing over at my brother whose eyes were still on the woman in front of me, the strangest smile on his face. It's not like Carlisle had never had a girlfriend that he introduced me to before, but he had never had this look of complete devotion on his face. It was as if he literally could not keep his eyes off of her. She was pretty much the same because as soon as she shook my hand and I told her that it was nice to meet her too, her gaze shifted back to my brother and they sat there for a good five minutes just staring at each other and grinning like idiots.

I looked over at Rose and she made a face that not only made me laugh, but also gave me the impression that Carlisle and Esme had been like without me there. Poor Rosalie. My laughter however, seemed to break the lovebirds out of their trance and they both looked over at us, Esme with a slight blush colouring her cheeks, but Carlisle with just an annoyed look. "You two need to grow up," he admonished, taking a sip of his own beer and finally letting go of Esme's hand."

"And you two need to get a room before Ed and I see something that'll have us in therapy for the rest of our lives!" Rosalie quipped back instantly, making Carlisle cough up the beer that he had been swallowing. I howled with laughter and even Esme chuckled a little, though she was also busy rubbing and patting Carlisle's back as he sputtered at Rosalie's blunt comment.

"So, my question of why you're back still kinda remains up in the air Carlisle," I pointed out as he spluttered up the last of the beer that had been lodged in his windpipe mistakenly. It was time to move the subject on and get some of my questions answered. It was obvious that the reason he was back had something to do with the woman beside him, but the exact specifics still remained a mystery.

"Yeah," he said, tapping his fingers on the table in front of him – a nervous tick. Carlisle always tapped his fingers when he was anxious about something, just like I ran my hands through my hair. "Well, you know how I told you that I was heading over to Southern India in my last email and I may not be in touch for a while because I might not be able to get to a computer or a phone?"

I nodded, indicating for him to go on. "Well, I was working in one of the clinics in the mountains up there and staying with the other doctors nearby when at about three in the morning, there was a huge commotion around the place. We all got up to see what it was and there was this crazed, beautiful woman holding a child in her arms with his leg twisted in the strangest angle and blood spurting forth everywhere. It was chaos, trying to get the bleeding to stop and then trying to get enough blood to make sure he didn't crash because if he did, there was nothing we could do to bring him back."

Sadly, the scene that my brother was describing was not one which I was unfamiliar with. Carlisle had faced many similar situations and many which had been worse and I had heard of some of them, but also knew that he kept the worse ones inside his head. I had witnessed some of these horrifying scenes when I went out to visit him in Africa a couple of years ago – an experience that I have never forgotten and doubt I even could. "Anyway, to cut a long story short, we got the little guy stable and fixed his leg and the beautiful crazed woman that walked him in from five miles away absolutely blew me off my feet and here we are a couple of months down the line."

"That's so bloody romantic," Rosalie said, her voice holding no trace of sarcasm, though I'm sure it was difficult for her. Not because she thought it was bullshit, but because Rosalie tended inject a sarcastic note into everything she said whether she meant to or not. "But I still don't get why you guys are here, right now."

"Well, Carlisle wanted me to meet the two of you," Esme said, smiling over at Rosalie and myself. She really was very pretty and very soft. That was the word that had come to my mind as soon as I saw her. She was all soft and gave out this warmth that I'm sure even Rosalie could not help be affected by. Rose found it notoriously difficult to get on with other women, mostly because a lot of them were thinking that she should stay as far away as possible from their significant others, but she had been okay with Esme thus far and seemed actually friendly.

"Yeah," Carlisle clarified, taking a deep breath before he continued. "That and I wanted us to get married here, with my little brother as best man."

I choked on the beer I had just taken a sip of and I noticed that Rosalie had done the same thing. "Excuse me?" I spluttered out just as Rosalie screeched "You're doing what?!"

"Getting married," Carlisle said calmly, his face lighting up at the thought. "In about three weeks actually."

"Three weeks?!" My head was spinning. My brother was not the type of person who just met someone, fell in love and then got married. Carlisle was not impulsive. He weighed everything up, factored in every variable and then made a decision about whether or not he was going to even bother making a decision. He had made a list of pros and cons about which college to attend – when he had been in ninth grade! He hadn't bought a car until he read all the safety reports about each model. Needless to say, Carlisle had not actually bought a vehicle until he was in his 20's.

"Yeah," Esme confirmed. "We don't really have much time before we have to get back to work and then we won't have any more time off to come here for at least another six months."

"Well why can't you wait until then?" I asked, still not really believing the fact that my brother was going to marry someone he had met no more than a month and a half ago.

Carlisle's shrugged and grabbed hold of Esme's hands once more. "There's just no point Ed. When you know, you know." He kissed her chastely on the lips when he said that and I had to resist the urge not to gag. No offence to the two of them, but I wasn't exactly used to seeing my older brother get to soft and cheesy. It made me kind of want to put my hands over my eyes and sing out 'la-la-la' really loudly, like I've been told I used to do as a kid.

"Save that shit for a Hallmark card Carlisle," Rosalie said bluntly. "So, are you guys getting married here or back in Chicago?"

I turned to my best friend and stared incredulously. She seemed to be taking this news in her stride whereas I felt as if I was floundering in a world that I no longer knew. Was I really being ridiculously dramatic about this? If Rosalie could accept the news like it wasn't the craziest thing she'd ever heard, maybe I was making a big deal out of nothing. It wasn't like I wasn't happy for my big brother because anyone could see he was so head over heels for this woman it made other people uncomfortable. Esme seemed like a nice woman too, sweet and she seemed as if she was genuine, something that both Carlisle and I valued a lot in people that we knew. I didn't know anything about her, but that didn't mean that my brother didn't. I was ruining this for him, I knew that when Rose gave me a hard stare as Carlisle told her that he was thinking about getting married in New York actually, where Esme's grandmother had gotten married.

Carlisle and Rosalie continued to talk about how the couple had met, but I couldn't seem to keep up with anything. I was still stuck on the fact that my brother was getting married in three weeks to a woman I had literally just met twenty minutes ago. My mind was abuzz with questions and all I could think to do was take a very long sip of my beer. It was so long in fact that I drained the rest of the bottle. Esme looked at me as I placed the empty bottle back down and smiled. She shifted away from Carlisle, but he seemed to be too engrossed in recounting the details of his proposal to an extremely curious Rosalie.

"I know it's a bit of a shock Edward," she began, her voice quiet so as not to talk over Carlisle. "And I know it's a lot to take in. Trust me. When he got down on one knee a month after we met I laughed in his face." She smiled fondly at the memories that hit her. "But he meant it, really meant it and when I knew that I just couldn't find a reason to say no."

"But this is so unlike him," I argued with her. I didn't want to make her feel bad, or to devalue their relationship, but it had been the one thing that kept going around in my mind and it was the only thing that I seemed to be able to pick out from the buzzing in my head.

She nodded. "I know," she told me. "Quite unlike me too, but Carlisle..." Esme stopped and looked over at my brother who was laughing at something Rosalie had been saying. The look in her eyes as she watched him was one of admiration, love and complete awe. She was looking at Carlisle like he was the very centre of her whole universe and I realised in that moment that my big brother may just be **that** important to this lovely, warm woman. And finally the buzzing in my head stopped and it made sense. I mean hadn't I just auditioned for a part where the two characters were so madly in love with each other that they literally abandoned everything and everyone they had ever known for a chance to be together. Hadn't the two of them sacrificed their own lives to just have the chance to love each other?

Carlisle looked over at me and Esme and I smiled a genuine smile at him. My big brother was happy, really, really happy and I wasn't going to be the asshole that messed this up for him.

*

"Fucking Carlisle eh?" Rosalie asked as she let herself into my room and collapsed next to me, just as I was figuring out that it was morning and I was in my room as opposed to the small darkened room that I my subconscious had concocted.

"Ugh," was my eloquent response. I turned my head away from her and put a pillow over my head for emphasis, hoping she would take the hint and get the hell out of my room.

"I mean if I didn't know your big bro better, I'd swear down that she was up the duff."

"Urgh!" I groaned again. I did not need to dissect my brother's strange behaviour early in the morning with a hangover, no less.

"I mean why else would you marry someone you'd only just met?"

"Get the hell out of my room Rose." The noise was slightly muffled by the pillow underneath my face and the fact that I couldn't seem to move my mouth quickly enough to form the words my mind was telling it to.

"Why are you not more freaked out about this?" She persisted, as if I wasn't telling her to leave whilst still being half asleep.

I finally gave up and shoved the pillow over my head in her direction. "Maybe it's because it's 7 o'clock in the morning, I'm hung over as hell and it was you that was chatting about damn china patterns with them both last night."

Rosalie just slammed the pillow back down in my face. "I was only doing that because I didn't want to upset Carlisle," she confessed. "I wanted to discuss his madness in the privacy of our own home, idiot."

"Could you not have wanted to discuss it in a couple of hours Rose when I would have actually been up?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"So you thought that I didn't deserve that right either huh?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

I groaned louder still and finally sat up to talk to her, my face thunderous, but Rose merely raised a carefully plucked eyebrow at me and shrugged. Obviously I needed to work on my angry and threatening face. It probably didn't help that I must have looked like complete shit, with my hair sticking up in all directions and my eyes still heavy with sleep. I'm pretty sure that looking like you're either going to throw up any moment or pass out from lack of sleep did not make for a threatening facade. Rosalie however, even from just three hours sleep and a hell of a lot of alcohol still looked as fresh as if she'd spent a damn week at some weird rejuvenating spa.

"Seriously though," she said when I'd settled myself into a position pretty much mirroring hers. I bet we looked the very definition of domesticated bliss right then. "What are we going to do about Carlisle?"

"What can we do?" I asked, pushing my cover off and swinging around so that I could go to the shower now that I was up. I only wore boxers to bed, but Rosalie had seen me in much less, quite frequently actually since she insisted on barging into my room without knocking. I really should look into getting a lock for my bedroom door – and the bathroom door. "My brother's a grown up Rose and I'm sure he's actually thought about this, probably more than we give him credit for. Plus, Esme's great. They seemed happy – ecstatic in fact."

She pulled a face. "It was a bit disgusting wasn't it?"

I snorted as I walked out of the bedroom and into the bathroom that we both shared to take a shower. I didn't really want to discuss my feelings about Carlisle's surprise wedding with Rose because I felt as if it would be betraying my brother somehow. I had reservations about it, sure, but I didn't want to talk about it before I talked to him first. I was going to be getting that opportunity today. We had arranged to have a game of squash early this afternoon just before Carlisle and Esme left Whitlock's and Rosalie and I headed out to another bar to get completely trashed. It wasn't a conscious decision by either of us, but after the earth-shattering news that Carlisle had just dropped on us, we needed several drinks so that the world would spin at the same time our heads were. Maybe then it would make sense once more.

Apart from my game with my brother and the talk that we would surely have after it, I had nothing much to do this morning. I had no auditions booked until next week, so I spent the morning working on a couple of pieces of music that I had started to write, but hadn't quite finished. I knew it was very cliché these days for an actor to also want to be a singer, but that wasn't actually me. I didn't want to make a living playing music at all; it was just a creative outlet that was purely for me. I think I could count the number of people I had ever played for on one hand, so I definitely didn't play so I could make millions out of it. I played to clear my mind.


	2. Chapter 2 So we Meet Again?

**Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 2**

**BPOV**

After my audition with Edward Cullen, I walked up to Sue and told her outright that I refused to do the film unless he was being cast as the male lead. Sue looked at me like I'd gone mad and maybe I had a little bit, but two and a half weeks of shitty auditions with men who literally had nothing but air between their ears would do that to a person. She told me that although she also thought he was amazing, she couldn't just change everything and cast him on the spot. She wasn't certain that he was going to be the best person for the part and she would not cast him unless she was one hundred and ten percent sure no one else could do it better.

I wanted to tell her that I was more than a hundred and **fifty** percent sure that no one else could do a better audition than that, but I wasn't the director and I would not have the final say on the matter. Still, when the next guy came in and gave me the same empty performance that was all about cheesy smiles and trying to pull off brooding and dark, I wanted to scream. I had to finish early that day, feigning a headache because really if I'd been in a closed room with any more idiots, I would have ended up costing the studio a hell of a lot of money in lawsuits. I drove myself the long way home, choosing to play some classical music in order to loosen myself up a bit because I couldn't smoke in my car. If I did, Jake would smell it on me as soon as I stepped through the door. I knew he would be at my apartment tonight because it was his last night in LA before he went off to location in Texas for ten weeks.

I didn't especially want to spend the evening talking about how my day was because it would just make me angry and frustrated, which was not how I wanted to spend the last night with my boyfriend for at least 3 weeks. Jake and I were used to the separation, both having been in the business for longer than we had known each other. We would always have to go on location, more often than not thousands of miles apart. That was one of the best things about being with someone in the business – they got it. They didn't sit around going crazy because you weren't home at 6 every night. I had pretty much worked without too many breaks since I was 14 and I wouldn't live my life any other way. Jake had never worked as much as I had, but hopefully with this new film, he would be much more in demand.

When I entered my apartment, which was actually above the garage of my parent's house, a deliciously enticing smell wafted from the kitchen to me and suddenly I was ravenous. Jake was humming softly to a song on the radio, which he always did when he was cooking and in a good mood. I dropped my keys on the table by the door and rounded the corner to find my boyfriend in his 'Kiss the Cook' apron, draining pasta in the sink. He turned to smile at me when he heard my footsteps, putting the sieve down on the counter top and walking over to pull me into a warm hug. Jake always seemed to be at least ten degrees warmer than everyone else, which made the fact that I was usually ten degrees colder that much less annoying.

"Hey babe," he greeted, squeezing me before leaning back and looking down at me. "How did it go today?"

I couldn't help the frustrated groan that escaped my mouth as my face pulled up in some pained expression. Even though I couldn't see my own reflection, I knew my face must have at least partially hinted at my aggravation because Jake laughed loudly as he went back to the pasta sauce, still simmering on the hob.

"That bad huh?"

I blew out a long, loud breath and nodded my head vigorously, wanting to convey just how awful the day had been. "Except..." I trailed off to inhale the wonderful aroma of the dish that Jake had just placed in front of me. I forgot for a second just what we were talking about. I couldn't cook worth shit, but Jake may have actually been a chef in a former life because everything he made had my mouth watering.

He sat down across from me with his own plate of deliciously smelling pasta and garlic bread. "Except?" he prompted.

I was currently chewing some of the heavenly goodness in my mouth, so I had to wait to answer him, meanwhile 'mmming' at the taste. "There was this one guy who was..." I couldn't really describe how Edward had been. All the words that I would normally have used – that I did use – paled in comparison to his performance that afternoon. "He was amazing."

Jake actually choked on the piece of pasta that was in his mouth as I breathed out the words. I understood why he reacted that way. It was...rare for me to bestow praise upon anyone, especially if it had not been coerced out of me. When he had finished coughing, he looked at me with wide-eyed surprise.

"Are you serious?" he wondered, a disbelieving tone colouring his question. He raised an eyebrow and looked at me as if he was trying to figure out whether or not I was being sarcastic.

I shrugged, like I couldn't see what the big deal was. "Yeah. He was just...he brought something else, you know. Like he completely understood where the scene was going, what it meant. I mean, he'd even read the poem."

"Jesus Bells," Jake breathed out. "You're positively praising this guy. He must have been out of this world good. I hope he got the part."

I made a disgruntled noise and Jacob looked at me questioningly, waiting for me to elaborate. "You know what the studios are like."

"Ah," Jake nodded, not needing anything else from me. "They know he's good, but they want a bigger name attached to the project right? They're waiting to see if anyone else auditions."

"Pretty much," I spat, not realising how much I truly hated the way they were going about this. I mean, I knew how studio executives worked. They wanted this movie to make them a hell of a lot of money and to do that, they needed someone to bring in the 18-30 demographic. In short, they wanted one of the new 'It' boys to take the part. Whether they could act worth shit was just a secondary concern because you can edit films to make it look like someone actually knew what they were doing for at least half the running time. It was just a shame that you couldn't edit them to make it seem like someone had talent.

"Who's even auditioning for this?"

"Well, no one really for this first lot of preliminaries, but they've got James Wilde and Seth Murphy for the second round."

"James? Really?" Jake seemed surprised by this piece of news and I kind of understood why. James Wilde lived up to his last name and then some. He had hit the scene in a big way a couple of years ago after being cast in a small, powerful Indie film about the 80's drug scene that had picked up Best Picture at the Oscars, much to everyone's surprise. Since then he'd been pretty much tearing through Hollywood like the hurricane. He had slept with all of the brainless, talentless 'It' girls and had been kicked out of every club in the place. He's been pictured smoking a pipe of what had been labelled as Marijuana, but what I actually knew to be crack, and he'd been in and out of rehab twice. In that time, he'd not made a single other movie of note, but he had racked up the inches in gossip columns and that was why the studio wanted him.

Seth Murphy was the complete opposite of James. He was the new Golden Boy of Hollywood who could do no wrong. Everything he breathed on right now was becoming box office gold. He was in a point in his career where he was transitioning from 'tween' heartthrob to serious actor and I knew that if he got this role, he would make that leap to play with the big boys and girls. But he wouldn't be right for it. It was completely irrational, but I knew that no one else would be able to do this role justice apart from Edward Cullen, the complete unknown who had knocked me off my feet today.

Jake and I talked a little more about my day and the rest of the auditions for the week whilst we finished dinner, but as soon as I had finished the dishes, I changed the topic to his movie. Jake was filming a strange psychological thriller that had me feeling sick when I read the script, which was a fantastic thing. It was such an odd film, but it totally worked and the mind games it played with the audience was like nothing I had seen. Even though Jake hadn't been cast as the lead role, he had a big enough part in the movie to ensure that if it became the hit I was predicting it to be, he would be put into the Hollywood spotlight. Not that Jake wanted to be in that light, but it was easier to make a living from being an actor when people had heard your name. It was also a hell of a lot easier to get the small projects you really wanted to film made and I knew that was what Jake ultimately wanted because it was what I wanted and it was one of the things we had shared from the beginning.

We spent the rest of the night watching TV and just generally being in each other's company. One of the things I really liked about my boyfriend was the fact that we could be in the same space as each other without feeling the need to talk or to bother the other one. We had known each other for so long and we had been such good friends that there was a level of comfort there that I didn't have with anyone else outside of my family. I wasn't the type of girl to make friends easily, but I was the type to make very good friends and hold onto them for a very long time.

Jake was leaving mid-morning the next day, but I wouldn't be able to see him to the airport because I would be doing another excrutiating round of auditions. He would be in pre-production for 3 weeks and then he'd be coming back to LA for a week to spend some time with me before I started pre-production for a month on the East coast. The film was on a slight fast-track. Basically the only thing they had left to do was cast the lead male – everything else had been pretty much sewn up. Jake's shoot was 10 weeks and mine would be 14 once everything was actually rolling, which meant that the most we would see of each other was 2 days here and there. Even though Jake was not in the lead role of the film, he was in pretty much every scene and so he would be working the full 10 weeks. I would also be needed on set the entire time and after the 12 weeks were over, we would be taking a 2 week break before going to shoot in Paris.

I was almost giddy at the thought of being in Paris. I hadn't been to Europe at all and it had always been a dream of mine since I knew what Europe was. I was going to be shooting for a couple of weeks and then doing some travelling around the continent for a couple more. Jacob would be joining me as soon as my own shoot was finished there and we would get to spend some quality time together before I had to come back to start pre-production for my next film role. It would be strange to spend so much time with Jake, alone, completely away from everyone else we knew and spending pretty much 24 hours a day with each other. Right now, Jacob would maybe stay at my place once a week and I would stay at his a couple of other nights - when we were in the same place at the same time anyway. When we visited each other on set, we were still working the majority of the day.

Still, I knew that we needed to see whether or not we could spend all that time together because Jake had been hinting for a good while that he wanted us to move in together. He had started dropping the hints as soon as I turned 18 – when he knew my father wouldn't absolutely flip his shit – but so far I had been turning a deaf ear to it all. It wasn't that I didn't want to move in with him – after all, it was the next logical step in our relationship – it was just that I wasn't sure whether or not I was ready to leave home. It was pathetic, I know. I was 18, making quite a bit of money and I was still living in a garage apartment above my childhood home. It was just that I hadn't spent a great deal of time at home since I turned 14 and I just wanted the same amount of time and memories that other teenagers had of being at home and living with their parents. It may have been stupid and it may have been completely pointless because I would never have those experiences and memories anyway, but that was what my mind wanted.

I noticed several hours later that Jake had fallen asleep under me. I could hear his breath even out and when I turned my head to face him, I saw him in a completely relaxed state, his mouth hanging open slightly. I smiled and snuggled further into him, bringing the blanket up fully over us. I could have probably woken Jake up, but it would have taken far too long. The boy slept like the dead. It was a good job that I had gotten a very comfortable couch when I first moved in here because I think I may have spent more time on this thing than the bed in my room. Just before I drifted off to sleep, I let my mind wander to the audition with Edward Cullen this afternoon and the intensity of the emotions he was both giving me and eliciting from me.

*

It was 10:30 and I was already on my fifth cigarette. This morning had been an absolute nightmare from the very beginning. Some of the studio executive had come down to watch the auditions themselves, much to Sue's chagrin and when Sue was annoyed, the entire set felt it. She wasn't one to hide the fact that she was pissed off as hell at the suits for coming to basically tell her how to do her job and so everyone was pretty much walking on egg shells around her all day. The studio guys had been almost giddy when a well known soap star had walked into the audition room looking like he had just rolled out of bed with three supermodels. I, on the other hand, nearly punched the guy in the face when he failed to get a very crucial piece of dialogue in the film right – the fifth time through! After that particular reading, I demanded a fifteen minute break and smoked three cigarettes in quick succession. I know it sounds completely retarded, but sometimes taking a long drag is like taking in a breath of fresh air – just completely fucking invigorating!

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, signalling that I had received a text message. I flipped my phone open and read it:

'_Just saying bye babe. I'll give you a call when I land. Hope you don't get too stressed out. Love you.'_

Jake's short message probably put the first real smile on my face all day and I stubbed out my cigarette on the building's wall before dropping it on the floor. I had three more readings to do before I would get a lunch break and I couldn't wait. Normally, I ate lunch with the rest of the cast, chewing silently on my sandwich whilst I watched everyone else interact and talk about inconsequential things. It was nice to be there even though I said very little because it brought that 'team feeling', which was one of the best things about doing films. Normally, it was usually the smaller films that had a more 'family' type of vibe to it, but this film seemed to have a very good group of people working on it. Sue had pretty much worked with the same film crew for years, hiring in just a few more people if she needed a bigger crew. She had some ties with at least all of the main cast members cast so far, meaning that the whole film had a very close-knit community feel to it. Today though, I would be having lunch away from everyone else because I needed to get as far away from this building as I possibly could within the time limit of an hour.

I slowly made my way back inside, smiling tightly at people as I passed by on my way back to the room my nightmares were made of these days. Sue was having a heated discussion in the corner with two of the guys from the studio. She was trying to keep her voice down, but every once in a while a few words would drift over to where I had chosen to sit and pick at my already too short nails. The other studio guy was sitting and talking to some guy who I assumed was going to be the next one to botch up what was a very meaningful and pivotal scene. After all, the scene that was being used for the audition was the one in which the two future lovers meet. How much more monumental could it be right? Or it would have been if any of these guys had an inkling what monumental meant, never mind how to act it.

It was strange that Edward had gotten a copy of the entire script when practically everyone else who had auditioned so far had only gotten this scene and one other, which we were alternating in between days. It hadn't struck me as odd until this morning when I noticed a partial script in a guy's hands. I made a mental note to ask Sue about it when she wasn't so caught up – or pissed off. I knew that Sue wanted the second round of auditions to have only 5 actors so that we could audition one every weekday next week and she could have someone cast by a week on Monday. Although officially there were still all five spots to vie for, with Seth and James already guaranteed two of those, there were only 3 left. I wondered whether any of these so-called actors actually knew that. Secrets did not stay hidden in a town obsessed with knowing – and often inventing – the 'truth'. I figured that some of them must if they had agents and managers worth the money that they were surely getting paid. What puzzled me was whether or not they cared because the acting certainly didn't reflect caring.

"Fine!" I heard Sue nearly growl, her hands thrown up in the air. She spun around away from the two men that she had been arguing with and stomped over to where I was sitting, quietly minding my own business. She was mumbling words quietly to herself, but I've never been great at lip-reading and she was speaking far too quickly for me to even attempt. However, my guess would be that there were several four-letter words coming out of her mouth. She motioned for me to take my mark, which I did without questions or comment. I didn't want my complaining to be the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Sue said a few words to the next guy, who looked over at me and took inventory of my entire body. I felt his eyes sweep over me from my feet to my face and then back down to my chest and I swear I threw up a little in my mouth. Here goes another couple of hours of hell...

1 o'clock finally rolled around and I was almost sprinting to the exit, lest anyone should try and stop me. I didn't know where I was going, but during the last audition, I had made up my mind that I wanted a cosy atmosphere where I could enjoy the quiet of being alone and yet enjoy the gentle buzz of conversation that had nothing to do with me, or with the film that I was working on. It would be far too hopeful to try and find a place where no one would be talking of movies – this was Hollywood and I had no intention of trying to find sanctuary in the rougher parts of town. I was extremely lucky that I wasn't really famous enough to get noticed too often – and certainly not famous enough to have swarms of Paparazzi following my every move. Then again, I had never courted that type of fame either.

I had been walking for about ten minutes when I saw a flash of bronze hair that I would recognise anywhere because I had never seen anyone else with that shade of hair. I stopped in my tracks and looked into a large window of a small cafe at the back of what I suspected was Edward Cullen's head. I couldn't be sure it was him because he was sat in a corner, his face turned away from the window. I don't know what came over me, but suddenly, I was pushing the door of the unobtrusive coffee shop open, sending the bell overhead tinkling. There was only a handful of people in there and each one was so busy doing their own thing that no one even looked up when I entered.

I walked over to the counter, resolutely keeping my eyes away from the direction of the guy who I thought may have been Edward Cullen. I stared hard at the board over the counter, trying to decide what I wanted to eat, seeing as I was already here and all.

"Hey what can I get you?" a British accent greeted me and as I looked down to look at the speaker, I was taken aback. Standing before me was possibly the best-looking female I had ever seen – famous or otherwise. Speaking as a completely straight woman, I was absolutely amazed that such perfection existed, even in a place like Hollywood where anything could be paid for and perfection was only a few surgical procedures away.

"Um...can I just have a minute?" I ask, still unsure what I wanted.

"Sure," she shrugs. "Just give me a shout when you've decided." I thought she would stand there watching me make my mind up, but instead she walked past me and towards the guy I still thought was Edward. She sat on the arm of the chair that he was occupying, leaning over to look at the computer screen that he was poring over. She laughed at something she read and as he turned his face to look at her, I finally got confirmation that Edward Cullen really was the only person with hair that colour. His face was a mixture of annoyance and exasperation, as the blond waitress continued to laugh.

Finally, I had decided and so I walked over to the two of them, unsure of what the hell I was doing. I had felt the compulsion to come in here when I thought it was Edward and now that I knew it was, I had felt the compulsion to come over to where he was sitting. It was a good job that I had a perfectly good excuse to be walking up to precisely where he was sitting, otherwise I would have felt like an even bigger idiot than I already did.

"Um..."I started, my voice small and unrecognisable. Neither of them heard me so I cleared my throat, stopping Rosalie's laughter and attracting Edward's gaze. "I made up my mind."

The blond waitress nodded, standing up and walking over to the counter so that she could take my order on the electronic register. I followed her, but was very aware of the fact that Edward was looking at me with an expression of bewilderment and surprise. I placed my order quickly and waited for her to hand me my coffee, resolutely not turning around to face the direction Edward's gaze was travelling from. I should never have walked in here. I should have just kept on walking so that I would be having a very relaxing lunch away from audition building and all the hassle that went with it. Instead, I had lost control of my feet and my mind and I was stuck here, not knowing where to look and what to say. Jesus, I needed a cigarette.

"Bella?" I heard a voice ask and I knew it was Edward.

I turned around and smiled. "Edward, hey!" I greeted. Well, I wasn't a damn actress for nothing and right now, as I tried to pull off nonchalant, I couldn't be more thankful for the talent I had.

"I wasn't sure it was you."

I nodded, not sure what the hell to say to that. I wanted to say that I hadn't been sure it was him either when I walked in, but that would have sounded extremely weird and the situation was strange enough already.

"How's things with the audition?"

I don't know if I managed to hide the grimace at the turn of the conversation, but it didn't matter because we were interrupted by the waitress handing me my cup of coffee and telling me that she'd bring my lunch order out when it was ready. I took the cup and paid for everything whilst Edward just stood there waiting for me.

"Are you meeting anyone here?" he asked as I looked around for somewhere to sit. I was thinking that the small secluded corner on the opposite side of the room to where he had been was a very good place to curl up into a ball and die of embarrassment.

"No," I replied, not a hint of the fact that I was banging my head against an imaginary brick wall at my own stupidity showing through. "I was just looking for somewhere to sit."

"Oh, you can sit with me if you like." The invitation was casual, not a trace of awkwardness even though we didn't really know each other and I was part of a film that he was trying to get a part in.

"If I'm not interrupting anything." I looked at his laptop, which was now on a small coffee table by the chair that he had been occupying. There were several pieces of paper strewn around also, making it appear as if he had been working on something in here.

"Oh, don't worry about it. I wasn't working on anything important." He gestured to an arm chair next to his. "Sit. Rose will spot you here in an instant."

"Rose?"

"Oh, the crazy British lady that just took your order." He laughed, head tilting to the direction of the counter where the blond was taking someone else's order.

I just nodded, not sure what to say to that. It was strange that Edward was so at ease, acting so normally even though I felt as if I was in a completely surreal situation. I wasn't the most socially graceful person in the entire world. I was always nervous around people I didn't know and consequently found myself silent the majority of the time. He, however, was talking to me as if it was normal to bump into someone you'd auditioned with and have lunch with them. Maybe it was normal for other people, especially in a town as 'close-knit' as this one, but it definitely did not happen very often in my world.

I took a sip of my coffee so that I wouldn't have to say anything, but Edward didn't seem to need me to say anything. Instead, he just smiled at me and pretty much asked me what the hell I was doing in a cafe that he seemed to be a regular at.

"Oh," I hedged, unsure of what to say. I felt my cheeks warm slightly, but quelled my embarrassing childhood trait just in time so that I was fairly sure Edward didn't notice anything amiss. "I was just...I was taking a break from auditions."

"Of course, the building's only like 5 blocks from here, right. I guess it's weird that I haven't seen you before then."

I shook my head. "I normally eat there, with everyone else. It's just that today it was getting a little..." I wanted to say overbearing and overwhelming and that it was getting to a point where I wanted to scream and stomp my feet like a 7 year old child having a tantrum. Instead I opted for "...claustrophobic."

"I can imagine," Edward chuckled. He was about to say something else when the blond, Rose, came up to us and put my plate down on the small table in front of me. She then smiled and took her previous position, perched on the arm of Edward's chair again. He looked up and raised an eyebrow at her, but she just shrugged her shoulders in response. Their silent conversation was subtle, but I happened to be watching them very closely, though I couldn't even begin to give a reason why. It was just that they looked...well, pretty much perfect together.

"I'm Rosalie by the way," she turned to me suddenly, catching me completely by surprise. "You are?"

"Bella," I choked out. She was rather blunt.

A look of recognition flashed through the blonde's face, but she didn't say anything. Rather, she just smiled and nodded to the plate in front of me. "That's a good choice of dish, but it's better when it's warm."

I nearly blushed again and scolded myself. I hadn't been this bad for years. It was something that nearly always happened to me when I was younger, but I had grown out of it over the years – or so I thought.

"Rose don't you have a job to do?" Edward asked pointedly as I picked up my plate and took a bite of the sandwich that I had ordered. The blond merely shrugged her shoulder, not moving from where she was. I didn't exactly blame her. The place was quiet. Everyone had been tended to and seemed to be here to get away from the rest of LA, busying themselves on their laptops or in their books. I realised that this had been exactly what I wanted when I left the audition building – well it would have been had Edward Cullen not been sat next to me, not that it was his fault.

I tuned out a little bit as they bantered, chewing my sandwich slowly and thinking about how damn weird I felt about being here. I don't think I would have felt so awkward had I just randomly stopped here and saw Edward Cullen, but knowing that I had stepped in here because I thought I recognised him made me feel like a huge idiot. I was embarassed about my irrational behaviour even though I was the only person that knew about it. Edward looked so comfortable here, so in his element because he was just that. He had no reason to be uncomfortable around me. I made up my mind as I finished my cup of coffee and watched Rosalie walk into the back room of the cafe that I would just pretend that I hadn't walked in here because I recognised Edward's unruly hair. I would be normal and talk to him like I would anyone else that I ran into in the business. It would be idle chatter and hopefully he wouldn't ask me anything about whether or not he got the part.

**EPOV**

When I finally got out of the apartment late in the morning, I had intended to work until I had finished the songs that I had been working on for weeks. I had not expected to see Isabella Swan in the small coffee shop that I pretty much lived in. I had only been in there for half an hour when I noticed her by the counter, looking up at the board. Rosalie was leaning over my shoulder trying to see what I had been writing and so had not noticed the new customer that she should have been tending to. I nudged her and jerked my head in the direction of the brunette that I had met just yesterday. She was tapping her right foot quietly and running her hands through her hair even though the majority of it was actually up. I kept looking at her until I saw Rosalie raise her eyebrow at me in question, to which I just rolled my eyes and went back to what I was doing.

I didn't want to go and talk to her because I wasn't really sure she would remember me and I didn't want to be one of those fake Hollywood types that instantly became your best friend just because you'd had a two minute conversation two weeks ago. Besides, she would probably think I wanted to talk to her about whether or not I had gotten the part, which I absolutely did not. So, I just settled on trying to figure out how I could even start Carlisle's wedding speech whilst the cursor blinked at me in a patronising way and the blank white page of the screen seemed to be mocking me. I had tried writing the speech in the park before coming here, but nothing had inspired me then either. I had thought that a cup of coffee and the cafe's undoubtedly creative atmosphere would give me the much needed kick up the ass. Alas, that was not to be and instead Rosalie had ended up completely distracting me with her thoughts about my brother and his fiancé, her complaints about men and the amount of work one of her lecturers expected her to do.

Rosalie was back looking over my shoulder within minutes, laughing at the comment that one of our mutual friends from Russia had written on my facebook page. Apparently a girl that Rosalie had dared me to try and pick up whilst we were in a bar in St. Petersburg had seen Tanya in a store and started talking to her about me. She had been asking Tanya for my contact details, as I had given her a false number when I walked out of her room the next day. I looked at Rosalie's head thrown back in complete amusement and scowled at her. It had been entirely her fault. She knew I never backed down from a dare – it was one of the things we had in common – and she used it to her advantage often. If I didn't know she would make me pay for it later, I would have pushed my blonde best friend off the arm rest of my chair.

I was just about to say something to her when someone cleared their throat behind us. I averted my eyes and they landed on Bella Swan as she looked toward Rosalie, who was quickly trying to compose herself. Rosalie finally got up and walked to the counter, her shoulder still shaking a little bit with suppressed laughter. I was a little surprised that Bella was here. I knew the studio that the auditions were being held in were only a few blocks away, I had never seen her here before. In fact, I had never seen anyone in here before that were 'in the business'. Like Whitlock's this small coffee shop had a very loyal clientel, owing to the fact that it was tucked away on the corner of a street with a Starbuck's just further down. Only people who relished the small, slightly academic and artistic atmosphere would ever come here. It wasn't famous and it wasn't crowded, but it was busy enough to still be open and it had enough fans to make sure that it would stay that way.

I watched her place her order and stand, eyes scanning the room looking for somewhere to sit and before I knew it, I was walking over to her, intent on asking her to sit with me if she wasn't meeting someone here. It wasn't that I wanted to quiz her about my chances of getting the role, or try and get information from her about how I could increase my chances of getting a call back at the very least. It's just that it would seem incredibly rude if I saw her and completely ignored her.

"Bella?" I asked, though I was certain it was her. Her face was striking, very hard to forget. She looked pretty different from a lot of the women walking around LA. With their huge designer bags and over-sized designer sun-glasses.

She turned around, seeing me for the first time since she came in even though she had been standing only a foot away from me moments before. A look of recognition flickered through her eyes and something else that I could only interpret as panic. Oh holy crap. She thought I was going to be one of those guys who hounded her about getting the job. Shit. Maybe talking to her was a bad idea. Maybe she wouldn't have even known that I was being rude because she didn't see me. I felt like a tool.

"I wasn't sure it was you," I continued to speak, wishing that I either had a time machine to stop myself from being an idiot, or I actually developed the ability to just stop being an idiot. "How are the auditions going?" I was oficially suffering from verbal diarrhoea. I had said the one thing I definitely did not want to say to her. I had been thinking about not saying it so much that it was obviously in the forefront of my mind and I had ended up just blurting it out. She must have thought I was the biggest dick in the world. Great.

I noticed the way her face distorted at the mention of the audition and inside my mind, I was banging my head repeatedly against the brick wall of the coffee shop. She was now thinking that I was going to start talking about the movie and my audition. She opened her mouth to say something that was probably along the lines of: _'I need to go',_ when Rosalie handed her a cup of coffee that she had obviously been waiting for. She smiled tightly at me as she turned and paid for her lunch and the drink whilst I looked at Rosalie over head, but she was too busy counting out the money Bella was handing her to take any notice.

"Are you meeting anyone here?" I couldn't stop talking. I think I was trying to prove to her that I wasn't just another prick in a town that started to resemble a heroin addict's arm. She was looking around the room, probably trying to find an excuse to get away from me. I really was starting to sound like some sort of weird stalker. Shit.

She shook her head slowly, her eyes still scanning the room. Obviously she had found not graceful or polite way to duck out of this awful conversation, so she had absolutely no choice but to reply in the negative. "I was just looking for somewhere to sit."

"Oh, you can sit with me if you like." I almost laughed at the end of the sentence because I could just imagine the absolute look of horror on her face when she digested what I had said. Here was a guy that she had met for about twenty minutes in a really intense scene for a movie that she already had a part for, but he didn't, asking her to sit with him. That was not normal. This situation was one of the stories that they retold in a real-life movie where the main character is killed by the stalker that she accidentally brushed up against in a crowded train.

She gave me a small smile and her eyes met mine for the first time since starting the conversation. I was stil surprised that they were such a rich, deep brown when I would have sworn they were green during the audition. "If I'm not interrupting anything." She looked over to the papers that I had strewn all over my end of the small coffee table and the laptop that sat idle on top of them.

I had started leading her to the area I had previously been sitting in. "Oh, don't worry about it. I wasn't working on anything important." In truth, I had written and discarded so much in the course of one morning that I was seriously fearing I would never finish the pieces that had so quickly been started in my mind.

"Sit." I used my hand to invite her to sit down on a chair perpendicular to the one I was sitting on and she sat, placing her coffee on the table a little away from all my work items. "Rose will spot you here in an instant."

"Rose?" Her brows furrowed in confusion, leaning forward to take the cup in order to take a sip of the black gold from it. Except that I noticed the coffee wasn't black, but instead a beige colour. She took milk in her coffee.

"Oh, the crazy British lady that took your order."

Bella didn't say anything, merely nodded, taking another sip of her beige-coloured coffee. She looked nervous, as if she was unsure of what to say and how to act and I have to say that I couldn't blame her after my stellar attempts at breaking the ice. I had basically come off like I was stalking her for a chance to do a movie with her. No wonder she looked like she couldn't wait to get the hell out of here. The girl looked like she was about to jump out of her skin if anyone so much as looked at her.

I just let my mouth talk because I hated the silence and the strange atmosphere between us. I tried to make normal conversation because I really didn't want her to think that I was some creepy guy and I wanted to prove that I didn't just want to talk to her because she could give me information about the film. "So, what brings you to this little corner of LA?"

"Oh," she seemed surprised at my sudden question and I thought I saw her cheeks tinge a slight pink, but it was gone as quickly as it arrived and I may have actually just imagined it. "I was just...I was taking a break from auditions."

For some fucked up reason, I couldn't get away from this line of conversation, but I guess it was really the only thing we knew of each other. It was damn hard to have a normal conversation with someone that you only have one thing in common with and not mention that one thing. I obviously wasn't very good at it. I made some comment about the audition building being only a few blocks away, reminding the both of us (because we had forgotten in the past 3 seconds) that I had been there yesterday trying to get a job. I **wanted** to stop talking more than anything else in the world, but I wasn't the type of person who could do that in awkward situations. Rather, I was the guy that just kept talking nonsense until someone forcibly told him to shut the hell up.

"I guess it's weird that I haven't seen you here before then." Now I sounded like I was stalking her again. It just kept getting worse.

She shook her head, taking another sip of her coffee. "I normally eat there, with everyone else. It's just that it was getting a little..." she stopped and searched for the most appropriate word, finally settling on claustrophobic.

I let out a nervous chuckle because she was obviously trying to get away from the film and all we had really talked about so far was related to the damn film and the damn auditions that she was obviously so fed up with. "I can imagine."

I opened my mouth to say something else that would no doubt have been just as stupid and inappropriate as everything else that had come out of my mouth when Rosalie walked over with Bella's sandwich and saved me from digging my own grave. Just as well really, my arms were getting kind of tired. Rose set the plate down in front of Bella and once again perched on the arm rest of my chair, her hand on my shoulder. I looked up and raised an eyebrow at her, but she merely shrugged her shoulders, a small smirk on her lips. Understanding dawned on me and I had to bite my lip to stop from laughing. Rosalie was perhaps the most possessive person I had ever met in my entire life, which was probably half the reason she had virtually no female friends. Her hand on my arm was her silent and subtle way of warning Bella not to make a move. She wasn't staking her claim as such, but she was planting a seed of doubt in Bella's head as to the state of my 'availability'.

I knew all of this of course because she had explained it to me one drunken night after I had gotten three drinks thrown in my face by three different women who had all seemed very much interested until Rosalie had shown up at my side. She explained all the different signals that women gave each other, which men did not notice, but all females seemed to be experts in. Men were much simpler. We only had one signal – the 'get your eyes away from my girl's breasts/ass/legs' signal, which really was just a glare that meant someone was going to get a fist in their face within the next 5 seconds.

"I'm Rosalie by the way," she introduced herself to Bella before I got a chance to. Another warning sign. Honestly, sometimes I think Rosalie should just urinate a ring around Carlisle and I. Disgusting, but an apt comparison. "You are?"

Bella had just taken another sip of her coffee and she nearly spat it out at Rosalie's blunt questioning. "Bella." She didn't need to mention her last name for Rosalie to know who she was. I had talked about her as both Isabella Swan and Bella when Rose asked about my audition last night as we walked home from the bar.

I recognised the look of mischief in Rosalie's eyes, but could do nothing to stop her from making the comment about the sandwich that lsy untouched in front of us all as Bella continued to sit awkwardly with us. I definitely saw Bella's cheeks colour this time and as she looked down to pick up her sandwich, I glared at Rosalie and reminded her that she actually had a job to do that didn't involve making me look more like an ass than I had already managed to. She just shrugged, completely unaffected and unashamed as she sauntered her way to the back room to talk to Ben and Angela.

"I'm really sorry about her," I apologised to Bella. "She's just..." I trailed off, unsure of just how to explain the phenomenon that was Rosalie Hale to someone I barely knew.

Bella just shook her head and waved her free hand at me, trying to assure me that Rosalie wasn't just really rude a few moments ago. After a while I found that it was actually quite easy to talk to Bella. She made a comment on the sandwich that she was eating and we suddenly found ourselves talking about food. From our favourites to the most disgusting things we had eaten. This of course led to talk about travelling because the most disgusting things I had ever eaten, in my opinion, were the snails that I had in France. Whilst the snails didn't really taste that bad, the thought of what I was eating made my stomach turn anyway. Bella laughed and told me that she had never been to Europe, which then somehow led to our biggest fears because the girl was actually afraid of flying and so had a hard time staying on flight for hours on end, with no land anywhere in sight.

It was only when my phone vibrated telling me that I was going to be late meeting Carlisle that I noticed time had passed extremely quickly once I had gotten over my whole 'foot in mouth' complex. I reached over the coffee table to shut the alarm off, but I knew it was time to go.

"Sorry, that's just my phone reminding me that I have to meet my brother." I explained, sliding the now silent cell into my pocket.

"Oh, don't worry about it. What time is it?" Bella smiled, tucking a strand of misplaced hair behind her ears. She did that a lot, mess around with her hair. In fact, in the entire conversation that we had been having, I would venture to say that she had run her hands through her hair more times than I had, which was slightly miraculous.

"Two fifteen." Bella jumped up, startling me with the speed of this action. I looked up at her curiously as I close the laptop down and shoved it into my bag.

"I should have been back at the auditions fifteen minutes ago," she explained, pulling on the jacket she had been wearing. "Sue's going to be after my blood."

I felt like a dick for keeping her so long when she obviously had better things to do than talk to someone she barely knew. "Sorry," I apologised, standing up myself. "I didn't mean to keep you talking so long. I kind of lost track of time, I guess."

She smiled at me and shook her head, running her hand through her hair again when it finally became stationary. "Don't be sorry. I had a good time talking to you. Really helped take my mind off the nightmare."

"Well, at least I'm good for something," I joked. "You should tell Rosalie that."

Bella laughed, but quickly said goodbye again and rushed out of the door practically running in the direction of the building that she would be spending a few more hours in before she was done for the day. I watched until she turned a corner and disappeared from view, at which point I turned around and started to stuff the papers still on the table into the bag with the laptop. I needed to call Carlisle and tell him that I was gonna be a little late. I was supposed to be meeting him in fifteen minutes, but it would take me at least 30 to get to the gym.

"She has a boyfriend you know." I turned and found Rosalie standing behind me, her arms crossed in front of her.

"Who?" I asked stupidly, reaching for the cell in my pocket.

"Bella." She clarified in that exasperated way of hers she uses when she thinks I was being purposely dense to piss her off.

I didn't really see what Rosalie was getting at and my face must have shown it because she rolled her eyes at me and shook her head. A classic universal sign that told me I was being an idiot. Women and their damn signs. Honestly.

"I'm just warning you."

Finally, I understood that Rosalie actually thought I was coming on to Bella in that lunch hour and I couldn't help but laugh. "Don't worry about it Rose. She's barely legal and I don't even know her."

Rosalie looked at me pointedly for a few moments before letting it drop and finally saying goodbye. I walked to my car, still amused at the fact that Rose would think I was trying to move in on an 18 year old girl. Sure Bella was beautiful and extremely talented, but I didn't know her and I wasn't the type of guy to date actresses anyway. Too much drama and ego in one relationship.

*

Carlisle was already warming up on the court when I arrived. He stopped hitting the squash ball against the wall when he heard me come in and nodded a greeting.

"Sorry. I got talking to someone and I completely lost track of time." I explained.

"No problem. Just hurry the hell up so we don't waste any more time. I want to be able to gloat when I beat you."

I laughed at this. Carlisle was brilliant and a lot better than me in several things, but squash had never been – and will never be – one of them. "Bring it doc." I had started playing in Middle School and was State champion in High School. I had always loved its fast pace and ferocious demand for coordination, skill and stamina. When Carlisle was in town, we would always make a point ot pla a couple of matches because it was something we had always done when we were kids. Normally, I played with either Jasper or Rosalie, neither of whom had anything on my brother.

An hour later Carlisle and I were both exhausted and very much in need of shower. I had beaten him twice, but he had come close in the first game to almost beating me. I found it rather impressive that he was still so good when he had only been back a couple of days and I was pretty sure that the mountains of Southern India didn't have squash courts to practice in. We had decided to grab a few drinks at the across the street from the gym and I knew that Carlisle wanted to talk to me properly about last night. I kind of wanted to talk to him too because I didn't feel like I could ask any of the things I really wanted to ask in front of everyone last night, even though really, I had no idea what to ask him.

He brought the beers that he ordered to a small table near the back of the bar, away from the sports screen that was showing highlights from last night's baseball game. "Thanks," I said when he handed me the bottle.

"Go on then," Carlisle prompted, fully expecting me to start speaking as soon as he sat down.

I shrugged. "I don't really know what to say bro," I admitted. "You totally blind-sided me on this one."

He chuckled a little, looking slightly nervous. "I know right? I think I blind-sided myself."

"Then why are you doing it?" The question came out much more harshly than I had intended. I didn't mean to take the tone that he was verging on insanity with what he was doing, but it ended up coming across like that anyway.

"She's just..." Carlisle trailed off, looking down at the beer in his hands thoughtfully. He breathed in and out deeply and then finally looked back up to explain his uncharacteristic actions at me. "Do you remember how Mom and Dad were Ed?" He asked, surprising me with his change in direction. It seemed as if my brother now lived to surprise me. Who knew?

I looked at him skeptically, unsure of where he was going with this particular analogy. "Yeah, I do, but I don't know why that would make you want to get married Carlisle. Surely it would make you want to run screaming in the other direction."

He nodded, taking a long swig of the beer. "I always thought that too. I never understood why people would get married just to have it end like that. But then I met Esme and I just...I got it."

I didn't know whether or not Carlisle was expecting a response to his less than clear explanation, but I didn't know what to say so I stayed quiet, wondering whether he was actually going to carry on or not.

"I know I'm probably not making much sense Ed, but the first time I saw her it was like my entire world had been tipped on its axis and everything that didn't have any meaning before, suddenly seemed so clear."

I don't know whether I was trying to laugh or scoff, but either way, I ended up nearly spitting a mouthful of beer at my brother as channelled a Hallmark card. "Jesus Carlisle, you sound like a 15 year old girl."

My older brother just laughed at me, sending me a look that was between smug and pitiful. It was an expression I knew very well because Carlisle always had that sense of superioroity about him when he was around me. Not that my brother was arrogant or anything, but I guess it was part of the whole being 7 years older than me thing. He would always have more life experience than me and so would always be 'wiser' than me.

"You'll know what I mean when you're ready to Ed," he said in a very patronising voice that he sued when he was pulling the older brother card on me. I imagined it was the sort of voice he used when he was speaking to his younger patients, but not quite so damn pleased with himself. "In the mean time, just trust me on this. I know you don't know Esme too well and that I totally sprang this on you, but I'm not making a mistake. It's not an irrational decision."

"I do trust you Carlisle," I told him honestly. I had 100% faith in my older brother, not just because of what he did for a living now, but because of how he had always been there for me throughout the years. Our home life had not been the easiest. Our father had died when I was 3 and although I was too young to have known him, Carlisle had always felt the missing presence and had tried to compensate for me, to make sure that I never would. When Mom got sick even though Carlisle was pre-med and absolutely drowning in work, he still ahd time to try and look after her, to try and make sure I didn't get affected too much by everything. My brother really was a modern-day saint and I owed him a hell of a lot.

"Good, because I have a favour to ask." He looked nervous for the first time since last night when he was telling me about his up-coming nuptuals.

"Anything you need." I answered sincerely. Really, after everything that he had done for me, I would never refuse Carlisle a single request.

He looked at me, his expression completely serious. "I want you to be my best man."

I laughed at him, because surely he knew that I would never in a million years have said no to that. Rather, I would have been insulted had he not asked me. "Of course. It's not much of a favour man."

He joined in my laughter and we spent a further two hours in the bar just catching up on the things we had missed in each other's lives since our last email. Carlisle told me more about his work in India and the plans that he had to start his own clinic in South America. Even though he loved his work abroad, Carlisle felt that maybe it was time to move closer to home. At least that continent was actually going to be connected to the one that he called home this time. He also told me more about Esme, but said that I should really get to know her myself because it was also what she wanted and I would be able to see what a wonderful woman she truly was. I, in turn, told him more about the audition yesterday, about the songs that I just couldn't finish writing, but was very excited about anyway and about a small film that I had finished filming only three weeks previously. It wasn't going to be a big film, but it was probably the one I was most proud of having done so far because it required real acting and showed me what it means to work on your craft.

By the time I got back to the apartment, it was time for dinner, so I picked up some takeaway on the way, knowing that if Rosalie was indeed at home, she wouldn't have made anything to eat and even if she had, I would never have eaten it. Rosalie couldn't boil water and even though I could cook a few select dishes, I often found myself going down the path of least resistance and just picking up or calling for takeout.

"Rose?!" I called, checking to see if she was at home.

There was silence, so I assumed she had either gone out or not come back yet. Usually, she finished work at 4, but sometimes she got held up because someone was late, or it got really busy. She would also sometimes go to the library to do some work for college before coming homes. Like the night before, when I got to the refrigerator, I found a note from Rosalie.

_Ed,_

_Some woman called. Said she was Sue Clearwater's assistant. You have a second audition next Thursday. Get your arse to the bar to celebrate boy. Drinks are on Jasper!"_

I had to read the note at least 3 times before I finally understood the relevance of what Rosalie had written down. I had gotten a call back for yesterday's audition. It had been good enough for me to get one of the 5 places available. I was that bit closer to getting the part that I hadn't realised I wanted this badly. I hadn't freaked Bella out too much this afternoon that she would apply for a restraining order against me. That was indeed cause for celebration and if the drinks were on Jasper then: _**'woo-fucking-hoo!'**_

**_A/N: Thank you for the reviews. I would reply personally, but I don't actually know how (stupidity, thy name is me!). Once I figure it out, I will though. _**


	3. Chapter 3 Revelations

**AN: Once again, I don't own anything that is publicly recognisable. **

**Chapter 3 EPOV**

Being woken up on two consecutive mornings by your supposed best friend whilst having a hangover from hell was not the best thing in the world. In fact, when Rosalie's blow drier sounded through the walls of my room, I honestly thought that I had drunk so much last night that I had somehow ended up on a runway and passed out. It took me a good minute of complete panic to realise that I wasn't next to an airplane about to take off, but instead in my own bed still in the clothes that I had been wearing when I came home. I didn't need to see what time it was to know that it was too damn early for me to be awake. Rosalie and I had finally stumbled home at around three this morning, so unless it was three in the afternoon, I should still be asleep and my best friend should not be trying her best to make my head explode from across the damn living room. I attempted to groan, but found that it hurt both my throat and my head. I would have rolled over to bury my face in my pillow, but I was pretty sure that neither my head nor my stomach would be surviving that movement. So instead, I lay completely still, trying to ignore both the unbelievably loud noise still coming from Rosalie's room and trying to stop the pounding in my head.

I couldn't remember anything from last night after the seventh body shot I'd taken from a girl with curly hair. We had met Jasper at the bar and after he had closed up, we went to a club in middle of the city. The best thing about going out with Rose was that I never had to wait in line. Even if Jasper hadn't known the manager of the club that we ended up in, Rosalie would have just convinced the bouncers that she was a supermodel and that Jasper and I were part of her entourage. One carefully timed flick of Rosalie's long blond hair and guys were drooling at her feet, opening doors for her and throwing themselves over puddles so that she wouldn't get her dainty feet wet. It had been Rose who first suggested shots and Rose again who then notched it up to doing them from a stranger's body part. However, as always it was me paying for it this morning. It was just a good job that I hadn't woken up next to a stranger this morning having an awkward moment as we both tried to piece together what happened the night before and for that, I probably had Rosalie to thank.

Today was Friday, which meant that Rose was awake because she had lectures this morning. I don't know how she did it; I really didn't because right now I couldn't even fathom the thought of getting out of bed, never mind sitting in a lecture hall getting talked at on the subject of aerodynamics. Even just thinking the word made the pounding in my head ten times worse. Finally, after what seemed like an hour, Rosalie turned the drier off and there was finally a silence that was only interrupted by the pounding of my brain against my skull – or at least that was what it felt like. I was just about to start counting sheep in order to fall asleep again when I heard the door to my room open and Rosalie call my name.

"Mghow afway," I moaned into my pillow.

"I'm not staying idiot," she snapped. Maybe she wasn't as unaffected by last night's celebrations as I had first thought. "I just wanted to remind you to pick me up from the library at five."

"Jbust hake the cmwar," I offered, knowing I would be in no fit state to drive until much, much later in the day if I decided to get out of bed at all today.

"Oh, okay thanks."

With that, she closed the door quietly and left, allowing me the peace and quiet I needed to finally get back to sleep.

*

I woke up feeling human again at one in the afternoon and after a coffee and a good breakfast, I was feeling good enough to go for a run. I loved going for a run after a heavy night out because there was nothing like fresh air to clear out alcohol induced cob webs. Not that there was fresh air in LA. However, there was a little park about ten minutes from the apartment that opened up into some woods that I absolutely loved to get myself lost in for a few kilometres or so. I never really knew how far I ran at any given time. I would just sort of keep going until either I could finally think clearly again or I was too exhausted to keep going. Today, I ran for a good forty minutes before I stopped and jogged back home to take a shower. The best part about not having a 9 to 5 job was that I had absolutely nothing to do today and didn't have to make up a lie in order to be able to not do anything.

I had just gotten out of the shower when my cell phone rang. I looked at the caller id, but I didn't recognise the number and it wasn't local.

"Hello?" I questioned, cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder as I walked over to my closet to pull out a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Standard uniform for people who didn't have a day job.

"Hi Edward, it's Esme," the still unfamiliar female voice said on the other end of the line. "Carlisle's fiancé." She clarified, just in case I didn't remember her.

I laughed slightly at that thought. "Yeah, hey. What's up Esme?"

She paused for a few moments before answering. "I was just wondering whether you were free to have a late lunch today, if you haven't eaten already."

I looked at the clock on my wall and noticed that it was nearly three thirty. It was going to be a very late lunch indeed. I was going to refuse because I wasn't entirely sure that either of us would be up for sitting around a dinner table uncomfortably, searching our minds for something even vaguely interesting to say. Then Carlisle's face popped into my head and I knew he would be disappointed if I turned down the opportunity to get to know the woman he was intending to spend the rest of his life with. I really needed to make an effort with her and maybe if I did get to know her, my doubts about how fast they were taking their relationship would ease. Besides, I had absolutely nothing better to do today anyway.

"Yeah, sure. When and where?"

"How about I come to your apartment and pick you up. There's a little place just outside the city that Carlisle said you would like. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Great, I'll see you then."

I hung up and finished getting dressed, wondering what exactly it was we were going to say to each other. I had never really done this with any of Carlisle's other girlfriends. I had spent time with them, but only when he was around and so I never had to sit there and think of things to say or ask. Carlisle wanted me to get to know his fiancée and for her to get to know me, which was a reasonable enough request. Obviously in light of the fact that our parents weren't around, I was the only family he had and she was going to be becoming part of that small unit. Maybe a part of me didn't want her to. It had been just me and my brother for as long as I could remember and maybe a small piece of me questioned whether we would continue to be as close if there was someone else. Of course the larger, more logical and mature part of my brain knew that Carlisle and I would be just like we always were and this woman would only add to that dynamic, not take away from it. Still, knowing that something is true and feeling it are two completely different things.

I wondered how much Carlisle had told Esme about our parents, about our lives before. If he had told her even half of the things that happened, she would have been the first woman that he had shared the information with. The only person that I had ever told was Rosalie and that was after a year of knowing her. Had my brother shared our family's deepest secret with a woman he'd known two months?

The knock on the door told me that Esme was right on time, which I expected. Carlisle hated being late for anything and he always looked for the same trait in people around him. It annoyed the hell out of him that I was constantly at least fifteen minutes late for everything – including my own birth, he always joked.

"Hi," she greeted when I opened the door. "You ready to go?"

"Yup, just let me grab my keys." Once I did just that, I locked the door and followed her to where her car was parked just a little further up the street. She was driving a dark blue Prius, which I assumed was a rental because they'd only be here for another month and Esme liked to travel around, pretty much like Carlisle.

The fifteen minute ride out of town to the restaurant was a little uncomfortable, but not as bad as I had anticipated it to be. Esme asked me what I had been up to earlier on in the day and I was a little ashamed to admit that apart from a run, I hadn't done much. She laughed at my hesitancy to admit that I had been in bed the majority of the day, telling me that everyone had been there at some point in their lives, herself included. When I asked what she had done to be having lunch so late on in the day, she was a little evasive, telling me that she was 'catching up' with some friends and 'tying up lose ends'. She didn't really go into any more detail than that and I didn't want to pry, so I didn't ask the questions that I wanted to about which friends and what lose ends. I didn't really know her anyway, so it wasn't my business.

When she pulled up to where we were going to be eating I laughed.

Esme looked at me and shrugged. "Carlisle said you loved this place."

I nodded in agreement, opening the door for her and following her in. "This is the only place in this state that you can get good pizza and that's only because the owners are from Chicago."

One of the things I missed most about Chicago was the fact that it did by far the best pizza in the world. There was nowhere else on the planet that had deep dish quite like my home city and there never would be, but this place provided at least a hint of the taste from home. We ordered our food quickly because I knew exactly what I was getting and really there wasn't too much variety anyway. Just honest to goodness the best pizza on the entire West coast.

"Carlisle told me you got a second audition for the movie that you were trying out for the day we met. Congratulations."

I smiled at her. "Thanks. That was pretty much the reason that I didn't see the morning today."

She laughed and nodded her head in understanding. "I thought as much. What's the movie about, if you don't mind me asking? Or can you not talk about it?"

I waited until the waiter sat down the two Cokes that we had ordered and left before I started to answer. "The script is based on a poem actually, I don't know whether you'll have heard of it though."

"Try me," she challenged, taking a sip of her cold drink.

"It's called 'The Dimming Light'." Esme froze almost imperceptibly when I mentioned the name of the poem, but a moment later, she was smiling warmly, encouraging me to continue. I noted the strange behaviour, but decided that I should just carry on and dissect her odd response later, when I had more to go on. "The writer was an English musician back in the 90's. Quite famous actually."

"Yeah, you're right, I haven't heard of it." She said and I knew straight away that she was lying and it irritated the hell out of me. Esme changed the subject of the conversation quickly after that to ask me how I felt about being best man. I answered her questions, but my head wasn't in the conversation at all. I wanted to know why she was lying about not having heard of the poem. It was such a small, insignificant thing to lie about that I genuinely couldn't work out why she would bother.

Maybe I was being overly critical of her behaviour because she was going to marry my brother in three weeks and I wanted to know if she was as genuinely in love with him as he was with her. I wanted to know whether she was good enough for him and maybe that was why I was being almost paranoid about her and her actions. Still, I had an uncanny ability to know when people were lying to me and she had definitely not been telling me the truth about having heard of the poem.

Just as we were finished eating, I knew that I had to ask her about it because it would drive me insane. I could sit here and think of all the reasons she would lie about such a trivial thing, but the only way I would ever know was if I actually asked her outright. She was on her last slice and talking about my brother's involvement in the wedding preparations when I interrupted her with my question.

"Why did you lie before?" I asked without any kind of build-up.

Her hand was frozen mid-way to her mouth and she looked at me with confused eyes. "What? When?"

I sighed in exasperation because I knew that she knew what I was talking about. She was just being purposely dense and evasive. "Look Esme, I want to like you, really I do. You make my brother really happy from what I can see and I want to support this marriage 100%, but I can't when you lie to me about the smallest things." I decided to just tell her everything because really, if you want honesty from someone, you're going to have to show them that you were honest yourself.

She set down the slice of pizza and looked around her, as if checking to see if anyone was listening to our conversation. The action puzzled me immensely and did not really fit in with the fact that we were just talking about a damn poem. Jesus, it was like I was in a spy film.

Finally her eyes met mine and she leaned in. "Look, Edward there's probably something I should tell you, but this is not really the place to talk about it."

The cloak and dagger routine was both messing with my head and amusing me. People always told me that I was overly dramatic, that I made a scene out of anything, but really, what Esme was doing was a little ridiculous. My raised eyebrow told her that I thought the whole thing was ludicrous, but she just shook her head, caught the waiter's eye and asked for the bill. I wondered if Carlisle knew that the woman he was about to marry acted like she was in the middle of an espionage film. It was an odd and very annoying trait.

"Are you going to tell me now?" I asked once we got in the car. "Or would you have to kill me if you told me?" I couldn't help the sarcasm that dripped from my voice.

She laughed and shook her head. "We're not in a James Bond film Edward," she said, like I was the one talking in whispers and glancing about to make sure I wasn't being listened in on. "I just don't like to discuss my family's business in public."

"What?" I hadn't asked about her family. I was genuinely confused. "I haven't said anything about your family."

"You mentioned 'The Dimming Light' right?" She didn't watch me as I nodded my head in agreement, getting the distinct feeling that I was missing something huge here. "Well, yeah, you were right. I have read it."

I shrugged. "So why lie about it?"

She looked at me briefly before turning her eyes back on the road, as if assessing whether or not I could be trusted. "Because not only have I read the poem Ed, I know the people involved." Apparently, I could.

"Huh?" I sounded like an idiot, but my mind was whirling, so I couldn't come up with a more intelligent response.

"The woman that it was written about was my cousin."

Oh. Oh. Well, that was an interesting development.

_**The day before**_

**BPOV**

I ran the entire way back to the audition building, knowing that I was already late, but not wanting to be any later. I was really surprised when Edward told me what time it was. Once I began to relax and pretend to myself that I hadn't come into the coffee shop because I thought I had seen him, the conversation flowed so naturally and easily that time really did just fly by. Edward was extremely funny with his incessant talking and the way he ran his hands through his hair every three seconds. He did it so often in fact that I was aware of myself picking up his little tic. It seemed that whilst we were together, every time he ran his hands through his already unruly bronze hair, my own hand would find its way through my hair moments later. I think he noticed that I was doing it, but I don't think he thought it had anything to do with his own actions.

Alice was sitting on a table by herself when I walked into the room that Sue normally ate lunch in. The woman looked up at me and smiled warmly, which I answered with my own genuinely sincere smile. I was really beginning to like Alice. To be honest, she made it a little difficult not to like her. She was just so warm, so nice and so happy all the time without being annoyingly hyper or sickly sweet. She was just a really good person and I appreciated that, especially in the environment what we had chosen to be in.

"Hey," I greeted. "Have you seen Sue?"

"She's been in a meeting all lunch time with the suits," Alice informed me. She pushed out a chair next to her, which was an invitation for me to sit down. "She didn't notice you weren't here and she doesn't know you're late."

I laughed as I took the seat. "Technically, since she's not here and the afternoon sessions haven't started yet, I'm not late."

Alice joined in my laughter and offered me a piece of candy from the packet that she had been holding. "Where were you anyway?"

"I had to get away from here," I told her honestly. "These auditions, these guys..." I trailed off, not knowing how to finish that sentence because there were no words in the English language that could truly express my discontent about the whole process.

Alice just nodded though, silently understanding where I was coming from. "Why are you late?"

I hesitated before answering slightly, not exactly wanting to tell her that I was late because I walked into a coffee shop to maybe kind of talk to some guy that I auditioned with yesterday. After I had clearly implied that the auditions were driving me insane, I couldn't very well tell her that I had almost purposely sought out someone that was connected to the process. "I was eating lunch at a coffee shop a few blocks away and I guess I just lost track of time."

Alice looked at me for a minute, as if trying to ascertain whether or not I was actually telling the truth. I put on my face on indifference because I knew from experience that if you tried to look too innocent people ultimately got suspicious. I used to be a terrible liar, but when I was fourteen, I did a film with a very famous actor who told me the key to the whole thing. He said that lying was absolutely one of the most vital parts of the job because even though as an actor you have to project an element of truth in your performance to make it believable, as a person you needed to lie through your teeth to the media to be able to stay sane. I had laughed at the time, not really understanding what he was talking about because I was only 14 and I had no experience with the machine that was the celebrity life.

"How's Jake by the way?" she asked, completely changing the subject.

"He's good, I think," I answered, happy that she asked no more questions about my lunch time. It wasn't that I was lying to her, but I didn't want her to think I was weird or stalking a guy. "He's in the air at the moment though, so I can't exactly get in touch."

Realisation crossed Alice's face. "Oh, yeah, that's right. I totally forgot that he was flying out for his new film today. Is he excited?"

I shrugged and nodded at the same time. I guess Jake was excited about the film, but it wasn't like he was bouncing off the walls or anything. I think he was happier about the opportunity to finally show that he could act, that he could make it in this business. We talked a little bit about the film and my boyfriend and I found that Alice was relatively easy to talk to herself. I had always thought she would be one of those people who got talking about something and never shut up about it. I always thought I would be more like an observer in any lengthy conversation with her, but I couldn't have been more wrong in my assumptions. She was really attentive, listening to my replies and answering accordingly. Sure she sometimes switched topics so fast that I could get whiplash if I wasn't careful, but that just made the conversation more interesting. I had a feeling that this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

About half an hour later, Sue came in and told us that the auditions were re-starting, looking completely harassed. The suits were noticeably absent from her side and I was a little relieved. I knew that now they were gone, the rest of the afternoon would go by at a much quicker pace, even if Sue was still extremely pissed off. The next few readings weren't so bad and by that I meant that instead of making me want to slit my wrists, I instead just wanted to rip off my own arm and beat myself over the head with it. I felt as if things were progressing. I only had another day of this torture to endure and then I was free for a weekend before having to do the last five days of readings. I was actually looking forward to next week because I would really be able to do some acting opposite people who actually had talent. Next week we were going to be reading through nearly a quarter of the movie with each actor and I couldn't wait to see how these scenes were going to feel.

Normally, I actually really liked the process of auditions. I liked feeling that chemistry with a person and creating something with them from the beginning. However, normally, I wasn't personally auditioning with over a hundred different men. The way that Sue had carried all this out was pretty strange. She had kind of added a stage in between looking at casting tapes and auditioning with the other lead. When she was trying to convince me that it could only be a good thing (before it all started), she had said that it would help uncover hidden gems. She explained how people could have really good chemistry, which pushed both of the people's talents to a new level, but this may possibly never be discovered if I only auditioned with 5 people. It had sounded great at first, like I would be really involved in picking out the guy that I would be spending 3 months of my life with.

I was a big believer in team work. I guess that all the films I'd ever made really reinforced that idea. In my opinion when everyone working on a project was absolutely in agreement with what it was they were trying to convey and create, the entire thing would be that much better. I wanted the person playing Robert to be with me, to be on my side throughout the entire process because that was the only way that this story would be real, would make sense, and could be realised in the way that it should be. I was always very wary of what was reported on the news, had to be really with everything that I had seen in the business. I didn't know whether the rumours and hypotheses about Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were true, but if it had been then their story really deserved to be told in the best and most real way we could tell it.

Suddenly, I knew what that way was and as the last guy left, I made a bee-line for the room that Sue used as her office whilst we were here. She wasn't in there because she had shown the guy out of the building, giving him words of encouragement and false hope. There wasn't a chance he would be getting a call-back, let alone the part. His acting was terrible, so much so that I couldn't actually believe that he passed the screen test stage. I sat down on the couch by the side of her office table and waited for her. I had never done this type of thing before and I was nervous as hell, but I really believed in what I was about to do. I knew that I was right about this and I didn't want to back down.

Ten minutes later and Sue walked in, her face showing surprise to see me there. "Bella, what are you doing here? I thought you would be half way home by now." Obviously she knew about my hatred of these proceedings.

I took a deep breath. "I want you to cast Edward Cullen as the lead." My voice was even and completely calm. It had just the right touch of authority running through it, but it wasn't hostile. I was rather proud of myself because inside I felt a little ill. I was not in any way a 'diva'. In fact, I barely made any demands on any set that I was on.

"Excuse me?" She asked, her face a cross of disbelief and annoyance.

"I want you to give Edward the part as Rob or I'm not doing the film." Sue's eyebrows shot up into her bangs as what I said reverberated around the small, silent room. Jesus Christ, I wanted to start hyperventilating. I was not cut out for this type of demanding behaviour. I wanted to say I was joking and take it all back, but I was bolstered with the knowledge that I was definitely doing what was right for the film, for the story that we were trying to tell.

Sue looked at me long and hard, as if she was trying to figure out what the hell I was doing. Well, that made two of us. "He's already got a call back," she revealed. "I had Emily give him the call earlier."

I shook my head. It wasn't good enough. "I want him to have the part Sue," I argued, surprising myself at my continued insistence. I knew it wasn't enough that he got a second audition because even though I had no doubt that he would be the best guy by far, that did not mean he would get the part. Hollywood did not work like that. It was all about money all the time and if someone else could make the film more money, the studio would sacrifice the integrity of the film to ensure that the cash kept rolling in. I wanted to know that if I was going to put everything I had into this film, I would get the same back from the person playing opposite of me.

"It doesn't work like that Bella, you know that." Sue scolded, as if I was a five year-old child asking for a dog.

"I know exactly how it works Sue and that's why I'm here. I will honestly drop out of the movie if he's not cast and you know it's not an empty threat. He's the best person for the job."

"You'll open yourself up to a whole set of law suits if you drop out," she warned, as if I wasn't already aware of this fact.

I nodded and stood up. "You and I both know that Edward Cullen will be the best guy for this job Sue. He understands Rob, understands the script, the feelings. I know you were blown away by the audition yesterday and you know he'll just get better. The film would not be the same without him; it wouldn't be anywhere near as good as it could be."

Sue sat down behind her desk and looked up at me with a scrutinising gaze, as if she was trying to read my mind. I would not look away because that would be a sign of weakness and I was absolute in this particular matter. Finally, it seemed as if Sue found what she was looking for in my eyes because she slowly nodded her head. "He's got the part," she conceded. "I'll smooth it over with the studio, but we're still going to have to do the auditions next week and don't tell anyone about this. I don't think I need to tell you what would happen if this got out."

I nodded, understanding exactly what she was trying to say. "I get it Sue," I assured her. "Thanks." I left the room feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I didn't even mind having to do the second lot of auditions because I would know that at the end of the day, I would be spending the 3 months with someone who understood the script, someone who could feel just as passionately about the film I did. It was all good and I was slightly high with the adrenaline rush and relief that was coursing through me. I honestly thought Sue would scream her head off and kick me off the film anyway. My gamble had paid off and I couldn't be more pleased with the whole thing. Yay me!

*

_**Saturday**_

I don't know exactly how it happened, but one minute I was telling Alice about Jacob's phone call last night and the next minute I had agreed to have lunch with her today. I hadn't actually realised what I had agreed to until she asked where and when we should meet. I don't even really understand what happened still, but I guess it wasn't going to be too bad. Alice was fun and it would be a good way to be friends with her outside of the crappy audition building. I needed to make more female friends because really, it was getting a little ridiculous that I only had one and sometimes there were just some things that you couldn't (and more shouldn't) talk to your male friends about. At least that's what I was repeating to myself as I walked into the small, but busy restaurant that Alice had given me directions to. It was smack bang in the middle of downtown LA and so parking had been a complete nightmare, but I have to say that I did rather like the place that she had picked out. It was a perfect mix of trendy and slightly off beat and very like Alice, as I was coming to find out.

"Bella!" I heard her voice from the other side of the restaurant, as did the occupants of the ten or so tables between us. I looked over and started making my way towards her, avoiding the eyes of the many people that had been disturbed from their meals by Alice's greeting to me.

"Hey Alice," I said, my smile tight due to the fact that I was also trying to fight the blush that was creeping up my cheeks at the attention that was still focused on us.

"Sorry about the overly exuberant greeting," Alice apologised when she saw that I had my eyes down and was sitting as low in my seat as humanly possible.

"Don't worry about it," I mumbled, sitting straight up now that I was fairly sure I didn't resemble a tomato. "I like this place Alice, how did you find it?"

"I live next to owner," she told me. "The food is amazing too. You should try the tuna and avocado salad."

"I'll take that into account," I laughed as we placed our order with a waitress that Alice somehow managed to make materialise out of thin air.

"What did you do last night after auditions?" Alice asked when the woman had gone.

"Nothing much," I told her. "I had dinner with my family and talked to Jake a little bit, but other than that all I did was read a couple of scripts."

Alice faked a yawn. "That sounds incredibly boring Bella," she said and it sounded like she was scolding me for not having a more exciting life.

"What did you do last night then Alice?" I challenged.

She stuck out her tongue at me, which was something I hadn't seen anyone do since I was about 8 and it made me snort, so much so that I my water nearly came out through my nose. Attractive and sophisticated, I know. "I had a date."

"Really?" I surprised that I was actually rather interested in this topic of conversation. Normally, I hated doing the whole girl talk thing because I found it repetitive and a little asinine. "With Laurent again?"

Alice furrowed her eyebrow as she tried to remember who exactly I was talking about. Obviously the date she had told me about a couple of days ago hadn't gone as well as she made it out to have if she couldn't even remember the guy. After a few moments though, her expression cleared up and she laughed at her own forgetfulness. "No, not Laurent. I met this guy a couple of weeks ago, but I ran into him again on Thursday night and we got to talking and he asked me out for the next night."

Ah, the dating game. I had never had the experience of dating around, like so many of my peers had. I hadn't gone to a normal high school and so I didn't exactly have a 'dating pool' to choose from. Instead, I had hung out on film sets with people far older than I was. Jacob was my first boyfriend and we had never done the whole 'let's go out on a few dates to see how we feel about each other' thing. I don't know whether I was happy or slightly sad about never having had that. The majority of the time I was extremely glad that I had never gone through the undeniable trauma of a first date with someone you barely knew. I had heard many horror stories from both male and female friends that would put anyone off the experience for life. However, I had also heard about the excitement and the nervous energy, which all sounded great. I mean of course I had those things with my boyfriend when we first started seeing each other, but it wasn't the same. I already knew Jake liked me before we went on our first date. After all, he had been waiting for me to be ready to take our relationship to the 'next stage', as it were. I was excited yes, but I wasn't especially nervous. It had been literally been like waking up one morning to find that your best friend was suddenly your boyfriend. It was very easy and I didn't have to go through the excruciating period of waiting for him to call after the date.

"How was it?" I asked, as if I couldn't tell from the way her eyes sparkled and her smile widened at the very thought of the night before.

"It was amazing," she gushed, her expression changing to one of wonder. I loved how expressive her face was, which was a stupid observation really, considering she was an actress. Of course she would be able to express her emotions through every part of her body, especially her face. It was part of the job and she was good at her job. "He's just a really nice guy Bella and it's so hard to find nice guys in this place, you know?"

I was about to answer her when she looked up at me and snorted. "Of course you don't know," she said, answering her own question. "You found your nice guy when you were 15. You never had to kiss any frogs Bella."

I was a little insulted at what she was trying to say because even though I was absolutely certain that she didn't mean to sound patronising and bitter, that's exactly what came across. I stayed silent, but after a few moments Alice gasped, put her hand over her mouth and finally realised just how biting her off-hand comment really was.

"I didn't mean for that to sound so..." she trailed off looking sheepish, which she should.

"Bitchy?" I supplied, the tone in my voice hard. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. If Alice and I couldn't even spend fifteen minutes together outside of work without offending the other then this was not a good indication of our status as friends.

She sighed and nodded, conceding my point. "Sometimes I just don't think about what's coming out of my mouth before it's out there you know? I didn't mean to belittle your experience with Jake and I didn't mean to sound so condescending."

I nodded, accepting her apology, but now a lot more wary about our budding friendship. I didn't exactly take kindly to people patronising me. It had become a raw nerve for me because of the fact that I was still so young. People I worked with tended to think that I didn't know as much as they did, or I couldn't do as much as they could because I was younger. The fact that Alice was only two years older than me made it even worse and it was taking every bit of my self-restraint not to just walk the hell out of the restaurant. If it had been anyone else, I probably would have, but Alice had always been nice to me and Jake liked her. Hell, everyone liked her. I could not be the only person in the world to not like her because she said something without thinking. I had been guilty of that myself. Hmmm, look at that I think I just had a very grown up moment.

"What's his name?" I asked, indicating that I wasn't going to go mad at her. Her entire face lit up, but her eyes still held an apology within them. "This wonderful mystery man of yours?"

"Jasper," she replied, her voice catching a little at his name. "He owns a bar on the other side of town and invited me and a few friends down there tonight." She looked nervous again, as if she had just said something that would offend me once more.

"That's good right?" I asked, confused at the turn in her mood. "Him wanting to see you again so soon?"

She nodded and then took a deep breath in. "Will you come with me?"

I think my mouth dropped open a little. Alice and I were not at the stage of our friendship where we went out so that I could scope out her potential boyfriend. No. We were only at the stage where we had lunch as talked about really trivial things and work. I'm pretty sure that she had several other friends that she could ask and so I didn't exactly feel guilty saying no.

"Come on Bella, please?" she pleaded, her eyes widening dramatically. If I didn't know she was an actress and fooled people for a living, I would have bought the act, but I did know and so I steeled myself further against it.

"Not a chance Alice. I'm sure you have plenty of other friends to go with anyway."

"I do, but I want you to come with us," she insisted.

"How do you know I don't have plans?" I asked, a little offended that she thought my social calendar was so empty that I could just accompany her on a whim.

She raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow at my attempt to make her feel a little guilty and hopefully drop the subject. She knew that I didn't have plans because my boyfriend was out of town and I was never the sort of girl that went out around Hollywood. I would go to parties if I knew the people throwing them and I would go out with a bunch of friends once in a while, but I never really understood the whole party scene. Maybe it was once again because I hadn't gone to high school like most people.

"You don't have plans Bella," she said with absolute certainty. "I don't know why you don't want to come. It'll be fun. It's just a few drinks with some very cool people, if I do say so myself. Ask Jake, my friends and I are fun Bella."

"I'm sure you are Alice and I'll find that out myself some other time, but I seriously do not want to go out tonight. I just want to be at home, maybe play a few video games with my brother and get an early night's sleep. I like not doing anything on the weekends."

Alice rolled her eyes and sighed deeply, finally resigning herself to the fact that she definitely wasn't going to win this fight. "You're old before your time Isabella Swan," she pouted, which made me laugh.

We spent the rest of lunch talking more about Jasper, a little about Jacob and a bit more about ourselves. I liked Alice a lot, I found at the end of it. She was witty, intelligent and a genuinely happy person. I found out that the first film she had done with Sue was actually one she had written herself, at the age of 13. I was in awe of her achievements. I was glad that I had stopped myself from getting up and leaving before because I really did think that Alice and I were going to be really good friends. She may have been the opposite of me in terms of temperament, but we seemed to just, click on a completely other level. She had insisted on giving me the address of the bar just in case I changed my mind, and I rolled my eyes at her as I slipped the piece of paper in my bag. She was relentless.

I was actually looking forward to spending time with my older brother, who was home for the weekend. Sam had chosen to attend college at the University of Washington, thousands of miles away from the sunny beaches of LA. It was now his second year and although he tried to get home as much as he could, I was hardly ever actually there when he made it. I had visited him at college a couple of times and I absolutely loved seeing him in his element. I think Sam chose to go up to Washington because that's where Dad had originally been from before he met Mom and moved further south. That and he wanted to get as far away from this place as possible.

I don't think that my brother resented me as such. I don't think he ever wished that he wasn't my brother, but I do know that he has wished I didn't choose the career I had. It was hard on him when we were growing up because so often either my Mom or my Dad wouldn't be at home as they accompanied me on location. Sam took the back seat a hell of a lot when we were growing up, always fading into the background because he was the 'uncomplicated' child. I had never felt guilty about it until he told me one of the main reasons he was going to college so far away. He needed to find himself, to step out of my shadow and just be Samuel Swan. No one but his closest friends knew who I was and they had already been friends with him for the right reasons when they finally found out about me. I was glad even though it hurt like hell to know that my older brother was thousands of miles away partly because of me.

When I got back home it was four in the afternoon. I made my way to the main house where my Mom was getting dinner ready – spaghetti and meatballs, Sam's favourite. I offered to help and she let me, asking me to roll the mince balls whilst she chopped the tomatoes and onions for the sauce.

"How was lunch today?" my Mom asked after about ten minutes of silence.

I shrugged. "It was okay. Alice seems really nice. I think we may become good friends."

"That's good." She tossed some onions into the heated frying pan and the kitchen was filled with the sizzling sound that they made. "Where did you two eat?"

"A place called Jezebel downtown. The food was great."

My mother and I did not have the best relationship. In fact, it was safe to say that we had a very tense relationship the majority of the time. It wasn't always that way. When I was younger, I was pretty much a complete Mommy's girl. I followed my mother around everywhere, always wanting to know what she was up to and if I could go with her. It was usually her that went with me to auditions and on location earlier on in my career. The change happened when I was fifteen. I don't know whether it was because I pulled away to gain independence or whether she thought I no longer needed her, but since around that time, my mother and I had not spent much time alone together and we got into arguments quicker than a match catches fire. I didn't actually notice until it was too late to do anything about it and I was kind of glad for that because I'm sure it would have kept me up at night when I was younger.

We continued with stilted conversations for the next thirty minutes until my Dad came through the door, my brother close behind him. I jumped up from my seat at the kitchen table and ran over to Sam, launching myself into his already open arms.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed as he staggered back a couple of steps from the force of impact. "Missed you too Bells."

"Sammie!" I squealed, like I always used to when we were both in single-digit numbers age-wise. He pulled a face at my use of his childhood nickname that he had hated then and he still hated now.

"Nice little sister, nice."

I rolled my eyes at his 'little sister' comment, knowing he was trying to pay me back for my greeting. "How was the flight older brother?"

He shrugged. "It was a flight, you know how it is." He walked over to Mom when I finally let go of him and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Sam had always been – and still was – a Mommy's boy. His girlfriends would forever be compared to our Mom and Freud would have a field day with him.

Dinner was rather a noisy affair as we all quizzed Sam on everything that he had done since we had last seen him. He humoured us all with funny stories and anecdotes about his friends and school, which he had told us all before on the phone, but it was different when he was right in front of us telling the story. Sometimes, when I listened to my brother talking about his life at U-Dub, I felt a swell of jealousy. I had never regretted the decisions I made about what I wanted to do with my life and how soon I wanted to do it, but I did often wonder what my life would have been like had I chosen something different; had I had a normal childhood. I envied the friendships and the experiences that Sam had because a lot of my life and my relationships were kind of in transition. I was always moving from one thing to the next and there were very few people that remained with me throughout it all. I wouldn't give up what I had worked for and what I had, but I had often wished that I could have it all.

I guess that's part of the human condition though – to always want something else, something more. It was a way of making sure we reached for the stars; to make sure that we reached our full potential. I knew that I was fulfilling my dreams by doing what I was doing, but I couldn't help wonder if I would be happy in another life too. Sam definitely seemed happy enough. He was just telling us all about a girl called Leah that he had met in one of his classes and even though he claimed it was in the early stages and they had only gone on a couple of dates, the look in his eyes when he said her name was enough to clue us all in on the very real possibility that she would be with him the next time he came down for a visit.

Two hours later and I had already beaten Sam at 'Guitar Hero' twice. I celebrated with my victory dance, which consisted of me jumping up on my coffee table and waving my hands in the air in front of my brother, gloating all the while. This kind of routine had been going on since I was 12 and could fully appreciate a win. When Sam beat me at something, he did exactly the same thing, but with crazier dance moved because he was much more coordinated than I would ever be. When I finally stopped laughing, I collapsed back down next to him on the couch, still breathing heavily.

"How are things in your life then squirt?" he asked, ruffling the top of my hair in a way that he knew I hated. Sam was just over a year older than me, but he played up to the whole older brother act whenever he could because he knew that I hated it.

"They're okay," I told him. I have one more week left of the auditions for this film and then I have some time off to go and see Jake before I start shooting."

"Does he still want you to move in with him?"

Sam was the only person I had told about my hesitance at living with Jacob and he said he understood why I wanted to stay at home. I had laughed at that because he had left as soon as he was able. Then he reminded me that I hadn't really been at home since I turned 10 and I had to give him that.

I nodded. "I don't know what to say to him Sam," I confessed. "I want to tell him the truth, but I don't want to hurt his feelings."

"He'll understand Bells," Sam told me, putting his arm around my shoulder and hugging me to his side. "That guy loves you and he'll wait until you're ready, as he should might I add."

"I just always feel like he's waiting for me," I explained. "He waited for me to be ready to start dating, he waited for me to be ready to have sex –"

Sam's face screwed up at the word sex and he immediately put both of his hands over his ears. "Oh, oh for the love of god stop!"

I shoved him hard. "Grow up."

He shook his head. "No matter how grown up I get, or how grown up you get it will never be okay for me to hear you talk about sex."

I sighed, but chose to change the subject anyway. Maybe it wasn't a great idea to talk about sex in front of my brother. I know I certainly hated it when he mentioned it in front of me – as happened quite a few times when he was in high school and his friends came around to see him. Having Sam back was nice. We sat up well into the night just talking as if we didn't email and call each other three times a week. He told me more about Leah and how they met – a story that he had watered down considerably in front of my parents as it turned out. I told him more about Jake's new film and the new projects I had lined up after this current one I was working on had finished filming. As great as it was that we communicated on a regular basis when he was school, it was a million times better to actually be able to talk to him in person.

**EPOV**

It was Saturday night and instead of being out with either my friends or a date, I was sitting at home staring at the blank ceiling of my room. Rosalie was on a date with some guy that she had met in the library yesterday. I had laughed when she told me because Rosalie Hale's 'type' was definitely not someone to be found in a library – unless they were ransacking the place. When I pointed this fact out, she hit me on the head and told me she was trying new things and I should do the same. Yet here I was trying nothing new and basically just doing nothing at all. I needed to get a life.

The talk with Esme yesterday was still running through my head and I didn't really know what to make of the whole thing. Firstly it was a big fucking coincidence that I was maybe going to be cast in a film about someone that Esme personally knew. I felt like I was in some sort of strange movie right now because things like this did not happen in real life. People were not connected in this manner. Apparently, some of the loose ends that Esme was tying up before I had lunch with her concerned the film and though she wouldn't tell me exactly what it all was, she did tell me that pretty much everything in the film was accurate and I didn't need to worry about being part of something that was going to be dragged through the courts and ripped apart. Well, at least that was something.

We had spent a good part of the afternoon talking about it because seriously, it was so out of the blue that I struggled to wrap my mind around it. I would have wondered if she was joking, or lying, but it was such a stupid thing to lie about.

"_Did you meet him?" I asked her in a whisper, awed by the facts that she was divulging. "Robert I mean?"_

"_Yeah," she nodded, her lips forming a small smile. "Yeah, I met Rob. I was there the first time they met actually."_

"_Really?" I sounded like a 5 year-old child after having been told that Santa had just come to drop off his presents._

_Esme nodded in confirmation. "Kris and I had just been skiing in Switzerland and we were in Paris for a few days before we had to come back home. Anyway, we met some friends who had been there a while and they told us about a secret gig that was going on that night. I wasn't particularly bothered about going, but Kris begged and pleaded until I literally couldn't say no, so we went."_

"_He was amazing. I mean the entire band was amazing, but Rob really was the missing piece, if you will. I don't think they would have done anywhere near as well as they did without him. Kristen was taken with him as soon as she saw him on stage. She couldn't keep her eyes off him the entire night."_

"_Love at first sight?" I asked, a little sceptical about the whole thing._

_Esme laughed. "Not exactly, no." She paused, gathering her thoughts and memories. "It was captivation, I think, more than anything. She was drawn to his persona on stage, but so was everyone else. Rob exuded this aura that had people clamouring to get to know him and Kris kind of fell for that first, before she fell in love with him."_

_Well, that was far more realistic and I was glad. The script, of course had made it seem like they saw each other from across a crowded room and they immediately fell in love. It was far more realistic for that love to come later. _

_Esme continued with her story, her face soft as she recalled fond memories from days gone by. It must have been hard for her, talking about her dead cousin with someone that she barely knew, but the wistful look in her eyes made me believe that she like remembering those times with her, when they were both young and carefree. _

"_I think they had a connection from the very beginning, but they certainly weren't confessing their love after thirty minutes of chatting backstage."_

I laughed at that because the one picture that had gotten out of the two of them together had certainly been used enough in stories to suggest just that. I just listened to Esme as she retold the story of their meeting. She stopped after that, not really wanting to disclose any more information than she had to. I didn't ask any more questions because I got the feeling that she didn't exactly want to tell me her cousin's life story. She was just telling me these things to prove that she wasn't lying. The one questions I wanted to ask her most was the one that everyone wanted to know the answer to, but I didn't ask it. It was hard enough, I'm sure, talking about a dead relative that you loved as much as Esme seemed to love Kristen and I wasn't going to make it any harder for her.

Carlisle knew everything, of course; Esme had told him the entire story when she told him about her family. I told Rosalie this morning with Esme's permission and she was as gobsmacked by the whole thing as I was. I think one of the main reasons that Esme told Rose and I so quickly was because we would be meeting her family at the wedding and it was better to prepare us for the inevitable, especially as I would know the people's names without having ever met them before. That was another thing that was going to be strange – meeting the people that were in the movie. Whilst I obviously knew everything about the poem and the script were based on real life events, I didn't ever think I would be meeting the people themselves. Worse still, I would be in some distant way connected to the family. That was very strange indeed.

I was still up and thinking about everything when I heard the door open and close. I panicked, quickly trying to force myself to go to sleep in case I heard any noises from Rosalie's room that would make me want to avoid her for a couple of days. It had happened a handful of times before and I still couldn't fully erase the noises from the back of my brain, as much as I had tried. I was about to grab the ear plugs that I kept in my top drawer when my bed room door opened and I found myself holding my breath, praying to god that Rose hadn't gotten so drunk she couldn't remember which room was hers and stumbled into mine accidentally.

Thankfully, when she plopped down next to me, she was alone and devoid of the smell of alcohol. The date had obviously not gone well. I opened my eyes to find Rosalie's leg in my line of vision.

"That's the last time I take your dating advice," she complained, not even bothering to see if I was actually awake.

I propped myself up so that I wasn't face to face with her thigh. "What?"

"You with your 'you need to start looking elsewhere Rose' and 'maybe your type is just the wrong type' nonsense," she clarified. "I don't know why I listened to you anyway. It's not like you've got a girlfriend, or even been on a date for months."

Bitchy Rose was just what I needed on a Saturday night. "Why is it always my fault if the guys you go out with are idiots?" I asked, confused and slightly irritated because she had a point about the dateless weekends and the lack of a girlfriend.

"Because you're male," she said, as if that justified everything.

"Thanks for telling me, the memo hadn't gotten round yet."

Rosalie just smirked at me. "So that's your excuse for the lack of action in this room lately?"

I shook my head. "Actually, someone said something about an annoying roommate I had who kept barging in without knocking. Couldn't imagine who that was could you?"

She shrugged, face like an angel. "Must be an American thing. Us Brits wouldn't behave so badly."

We both burst out laughing at that because the time I spent in England showed me just how badly the British youth did behave. Really, when it came to drunken debauchery, we had nothing on them. Even my wildest nights during my high school days couldn't compare to the stories that Rosalie told me about her youth.

"What happened then?" I asked finally, my breathing returning to normal.

Rosalie sighed heavily and moved down the bed so she was actually lying down, face turned up towards the ceiling. "Nothing really," she confessed. "He was just...and we just didn't...and I would never..."

"Your eloquence amazes me Rosalie," I said sarcastically, scooting down to join her.

"Basically he was just the same as every other guy that I meet Ed," she told me. "From the moment he picked me up, he was making eyes at my chest. Even when I told him about the fact that I am studying astrophysics, he talked to my breasts the entire evening."

Ah, the curse of the beautiful people. One of the biggest problems Rosalie had with men was that she looked like the ideal Barbie doll figure and so they assumed she had the intelligence of a plastic model too. They were always interested in her physically, but they never gave a damn about what she had to say and this annoyed the living crap out of the woman. To say that Rosalie Hale was opinionated would be like saying the North Pole was just a little chilly. Rosalie was intelligent and she had never been ashamed to show it. She liked discussing intellectual things as well as really mundane things and she enjoyed sharing her opinion on current events. What she did not enjoy was listening to other people talk about important things whilst she was completely ignored, which was what happened all too often.

"I don't know when I'm ever going to find a man who can tell me what the colour of my eyes are without having to ask me, you know?"

"They're blue," said, trying to lighten the sombre mood that had descended around her.

She chuckled and pushed my arm. "You don't count because you might not as well be a man."

"Ouch," I said, feigning hurt. "Twice in the space of five minutes you've insulted my manhood Rose."

She shrugged and huffed out a deep breath. "You make it too easy Ed. Have you been here all night?"

I nodded and even though she couldn't see me, I knew she would feel the movement. "Jasper called and wanted me to go to the bar, but after the last two nights I'm staying clear of that place."

Rosalie laughed. "Jeez, when did you become so old Ed?" she mocked. Well, at least she wasn't feeling depressed about her awful date anymore.

"When I got a roommate who thinks that trying to destroy my liver is a good hobby."

"Maybe not good, but it sure is fun," she teased. "Besides, you love going out with me soft boy. I have the best ideas on how to have fun."

"Honestly Rose, I wouldn't remember whose ideas they were because my memory is wiped after the tenth shot usually."

She shrugged casually, like short-term memory loss was nothing to worry about. "It's like the 60's Ed," she explained. "If you remember it, you weren't there."

I laughed at her statement, wondering how she wasn't in rehab or something by now. It may have been slightly embarrassing to admit, but on most nights Rose could drink me under the table and I wasn't exactly a lightweight. Jasper and I figured that the woman must have had a hollow leg because there was no way on earth that her tiny body could accommodate as much alcohol as she drank on a night out. We talked a little more, keeping the subject quite light because I knew that deep down Rose was still smarting from her disastrous dinner date.

It was hard for Rosalie and not many people who met her could ever see why. When people see her all they see is a girl with good looks, brains and the world at her feet and I guess for the most part, they're right. Rosalie should be one of the happiest people on earth. She had the good fortune to be given everything that was of value in society. But Rose had gone through things that people should never have to go through and she lived her life in the shadow of those events, even now when she was so far away from it all. To Rosalie, her beauty was not the blessing that everyone thought it was, rather a nightmare that she couldn't get rid of. People say you never know what goes on behind closed doors and in the case of my best friend, they couldn't have been closer to the truth.


	4. Chapter 4 Coast to Coast

**AN: I don't own anything publicly recognisable. Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and real people own themselves. **

**Chapter 4 BPOV**

There was a spring in my step when I walked into the audition building on Monday morning and it wasn't just because I had spent the weekend with my brother. I didn't have to wake up early because the audition didn't start until 11 and so I had spent a good two hours on the phone with my boyfriend last night. Sue had called me Sunday afternoon to tell me that she had persuaded the studio to go with Edward, showing them the tape that she had shot when he had done his audition. However, no one would know until this weekend, so I couldn't say a single thing to anyone. Even Edward wouldn't get the call until probably Sunday. I was also a lot more excited about these auditions now that I knew the person worthy of the job would be getting it. I was finally happy that the film would be made the way it was meant to be and I was now just curious to know which two other actors they had chosen to read and what the other two would bring to the table. Today James was auditioning and I had to admit that I was just a little curious about the tabloid legend that was James Wilde. I wanted to see if he lived up to all the hype that surrounded him.

Alice met me in the kitchen, offering me a readymade cup of coffee. She had called me in the early hours of Sunday morning, but even though I had been awake, I let it go to answer phone. She was a little inebriated if the message was anything to go by and she was blabbering about the bar and Jasper and about how I was a huge 'party pooper' for not joining her and her group of friends. There was a lot of shouting and 'woohoo-ing' on the message, which amused me greatly whilst listening to it. Alice hadn't even hung up, she just sort of said bye and left her phone on anyway, meaning that I heard a lot of background chatter until my answer phone service finally cut it off ten minutes later.

"Thanks Alice," I said as I took the steaming mug of beige coloured liquid from her.

"Think of it as an apology for the message I left your answer phone on Saturday night," she explained, laughing.

I joined her, sitting down at the little table in the middle of the room. "You should really learn not to drink and dial."

"Ain't that the truth," she agreed solemnly, which made me laugh a little harder.

"You sounded like you had a good time anyway," I observed, knowing that it would lead to her talking about Saturday night without me having to ask a barrage of questions.

I was right and she spent the next twenty minutes telling me about Jasper, his bar and his friends. Apparently, she had found out that he was friends with Edward Cullen and they had spent a while laughing at what a small world it was. Alice was pretty smitten with Jasper. I saw it in the way her entire face lit up when she said his name and the way she smiled when she was recalling the things he said to her. Her happiness was infectious and even if I hadn't been in a good mood myself to begin with, I probably would have been after I had spoken to Alice.

Sue came to get us just as we were drying the cups that we had used her mood also rather light this morning. I guess everyone just needed the weekend to recuperate and put their best game faces on for the coming week. She led us all to a large room where several other people were setting up lights, putting out markers on the floor and generally setting some kind of scene. Hmm...I guess they were really taking these second auditions seriously. Shame really that it would all be pretty much for nothing seeing as the right guy had already been picked and hired, kind of. However, I knew there the studio had to keep up the pretences because if someone caught on to the fact that they weren't going to hire any of the other actors auditioning over these 5 days, they would be losing millions of dollars in a lawsuit. It was costing them a hell of a lot less to carry on with the charade.

I stood with the other actors and actresses, listening to everyone as they told each other what had happened the last two days of their lives. It was nice to see how quickly we had all become friends and some of the guys had even spent some time with each other over the weekend, hanging out away from this place. I wondered if Edward would fit in easily with this group of people, since he was coming into the cast much later than everyone else. Personally, I found him very easy to be with, but that was when we'd been by ourselves and there wasn't the pressure on him to fit in with an already established group.

The moment James Wilde entered the room, his presence was definitely felt. There was an audible gasp from different people around the room, followed by intense silence and finally the buzz of whispers as he walked from the doorway to the other side of the room where Sue was setting up her camera to record the auditions so she could peruse the scenes later. Walked was probably the wrong word to use actually because James didn't walk like normal people. Instead he sort of _**sauntered**_, as if the entire room was there just to watch him make his way across the floor. If everyone hadn't been staring at him, I would have called him arrogant and ridiculous. As it was, about 99.9% of the room had their eyes trained on him, unabashedly following his every movement as if they didn't work with famous people every day.

From looking at him, he certainly looked the part of Hollywood bad boy. He was wearing light denim jeans, ripped at several places and looking like they hadn't been washed in years. Of course he had probably paid several hundred dollars to have those jeans ripped in such an artful manner, but he would never admit that and no one would be able to prove it even if they cared to. His white T-shirt was simple and rather tight, showing off the planes of his muscles, which rippled underneath as he walked. He had walked in wearing shades and they were still sitting on his face even though he was now inside with the sun a distant memory. He had obviously not shaved for a good couple of days and his hair was artfully dishevelled, as if he had just rolled out of some supermodel's bed, which was probably exactly the case. Well, the bed part anyway. His hair had probably taken a good hour or so to do this morning – the amount of product in it would attest to that.

He spoke to Sue for a few moments and then turned to me, smiling when he caught my eye. I didn't like him already. He just stood on the other side of the room looking at me and smirking and all I really wanted to do was flip him off. I hated people like James who actually had talent, but choose to waste it because they bought into the entire celebrity lifestyle of sex drugs and rock 'n' roll. After a few moments, Sue stopped what she was doing and started walking over to us, James trailing along a couple of steps behind her, sunglasses still in place and his lips still twisted in a superior and amused expression.

"Everyone this is James Wilde," she introduced unnecessarily. "James, this is the rest of the cast. This is Isabella Swan, Alice Brandon, Mike Newton, Tyler Crowley, Ben Cheney and Angela Webber. They're the ones you'll be doing most of your scenes with today and the rest of the film, if you get the part."

Everyone said their 'hello's' to him, but I just inclined my head in his direction, which he noted with an even wider, creepier grin. He made my skin crawl and I wasn't even anywhere near him yet. This was obviously going to be a long day – and it had started so well. I guess that would teach me to be in a good mood on a Monday morning. Sue was called away to another part of the room, leaving James with the rest of us so that we could 'get acquainted'. The way his eyes lit up when she said those words made me want to punch the guy in the face.

"Isabella Swan," he said first, turning his body towards me so that he blocked out everyone else.

I didn't bother to hide the eye roll that his actions inspired. "James Wilde."

"Now that we know who the other is, what do you say to a little one on one rehearsal time before we start reading with the rest of these...folks?" He punctuated the last part of his sentence with a casual and very dismissive hand gesture to indicate the rest of the cast. I saw Alice's face turn indignant over his shoulder. She was the only one really listening to our conversation; everyone else had formed smaller circles a little away from us and were having their own discussions.

"I would," I told him, my town saccharine and completely false. "But you see, I throw up a little in my mouth when I'm alone with slimy James Dean wannabe's, so I don't think that's such a good idea."

His eyes blazed and his face reddened in anger, but before he could say anything, Sue called for everyone to get ready for the first scene that we were doing that day. Interestingly enough, it was the scene that Edward had read when he auditioned for the part. It had been changed so that it was now written the way he had thought it should be and as I got ready for it, I wondered what James would bring to the scene. The music that was played at the beginning wasn't specified and as the lights dimmed and James started playing notes on the piano, I registered that what he was playing wasn't at all as affective at setting the scene as the piece that Edward had played.

James' portrayal of Robert was strong. He may have been an absolute creep, but he could act and had I not been part of this scene played to perfection already, I would have been very impressed. As it was, whilst I could appreciate that his performance was good, it wasn't great. It wasn't intensity that he was lacking because James definitely brought that, but when I looked at him, I still saw James Wilde playing the part of Robert Pattinson; I didn't just see Robert Pattinson. There was also the fact that he tried to slip me tongue twice during the kissing. The second time he did it during the first run through, I bit the tip of it a little and he hissed, but kept on going with the scene. It probably wouldn't have been noticed by anyone but Sue and had he actually done the same thing on set when we were really filming, she would have called cut and reamed him out. As it was, the fact that James didn't stop the scene was pretty impressive and had I not hated him, I would have been impressed.

The scene ended and we set up for the next, which I was not a part of. It was one of Rob and his friends as they discussed their up and coming tour and the songs they were in the process of writing. This next scene actually happened before the scene that we had just read. I was supposed to watch it, but instead I quietly sneaked out of the room and to the back of the building so that I could have a cigarette to take the taste of James from my mouth. I was taking my second puff when my cell phone rang.

I flipped it open without looking at the caller id. It was Jake. He had programmed a ring tone onto my phone for himself so that I'd always know it was him calling. The song he had chosen was 'our song'. It had been playing in the restaurant that we had our first date in and it had surprised the hell out of me when I realised that Jake actually remembered.

"Hey babe," I greeted when I flipped the phone open.

"Hey sweetie," Jake smiled into the phone. "How's the audition so far?"

I groaned and took another drag of my cigarette away from the phone – I didn't want Jake to _hear_ me smoking. "The greatest mystery about James Wilde is why the hell he isn't serving time for sexual harassment." I announced venomously, exhaling the smoke as I did so.

Jake laughed loudly on the other end, so much so that I had to put the phone away from my ear so he didn't damage my ear drum. I used the opportunity to take another drag of the cigarette.

"What's he done?" He was still laughing a little as he asked this question.

"Well if the leering weren't enough to make me throw up in my mouth a little, his tongue in my mouth certainly would have pushed me over the edge."

Jake's laughter died immediately. "What?!"

"Chill out Jake," I told him, stubbing out the butt of my cigarette on the wall. "I bit him and I don't think he'll be doing it again anytime soon."

"Fucker!" Jake's hiss was filled with the same anger that had coursed through me when James' tongue decided to break free from his mouth. "I hope he doesn't get the part Bella."

I wanted to tell him that there was no way in hell James would get this part because I already knew who had it, but Jake wasn't supposed to know that and so I couldn't say anything. "Yeah, well me and you both." That was the only reply I could give him. "Listen hon, I have to get going. They're going to need me in the next scene. I'll call you when I finish 'kay?"

"Okay," Jake agreed. "If he gets too close again though, tell me and I'll fly down there and kick his sorry ass."

I rolled my eyes at Jake's over-dramatics. He was always threatening violence. "Okay. Talk to you in a while."

I snapped my phone shut and walked back into the audition room where the scene was still being played out. At the moment, James, Tyler and Alice were having a little jamming session in the middle of the street – or at least that was where they were supposed to be. Instead, they were sitting on chairs in a middle of a room with several people buzzing around them and a camera rolling. Not quite the same effect. Still, they were pretty good and James actually had a decent voice – shame about the rest of him. The song that they were playing was one of my favourites of all time, or it had been ever since I heard it. Rob's music never really appealed to me when he was still alive and releasing records, but that was probably down to the fact that I was only a kid back then and my definition of good music was whatever Disney happened to tell me. When I read the poem and found out that he had written it, I immediately listened to his songs and I fell in love with his music. He wrote things that just spoke to me, left me feeling a number of different things all at once and yet as if the world were simpler. His music, like his poem, left me with paradoxical feelings, but that was what made it better, what made it reach into the very core of you and grip onto your soul.

The rest of the morning went okay. Once James had gotten the message that I was not now, and never would be, interested, he kind of backed off a little. Not enough to give me my personal space when we were standing together between scenes, but enough so that no part of his body tried to make it inside mine again. That was a win right? And it wasn't like I was ever going to see him again after today. Thank god. We broke for lunch at 1:30 and I decided that I was going to take a walk – away from James Wilde. I hadn't really explored the area surrounding the building that I had spent the past three weeks of my life in, but I really could not stand any extra minutes with James practically breathing down my neck.

It was a gloriously sunny day in LA, but then again there wasn't really any other type of day around here. Even though I had never lived anywhere else and I did absolutely love the sun, I sometimes wished that we could experience seasons here. I absolutely loved the Spring – it was probably my most favourite time of the year, but I had only seen it a handful of times when I'd been on location or when I'd been travelling to promote a film. Really, I was a little pathetic. My life revolved around my work and even though I loved it, sometimes I did find myself wondering what else there was.

I found myself in a park that I never knew was even there without realising it for the first few moments. All of a sudden the city's noise dimmed and there was a spattering of green that was usually not evident in the urban jungle of Hollywood. The park was quiet and that was exactly how I wanted it; children were at school and their parents at work. I walked further into the park until I found myself walking into something which could have been described as a very small forest. The covering of the trees provided a welcome cooler environment, shading me from the harsh sunlight and making it seem as if I was somewhere other than LA. I followed the trail further and further into the trees, but when I found a small clearing to the left of the defined path, I strayed from it and sat in the middle of the greenery, legs crossed and revelling in the only sound around me being the breeze blowing through the leaves.

I don't know how long I stayed in exactly the same spot enjoying the calm in the middle of the city, but suddenly, the ruffling of the leaves was joined by heavy breathing and pounding footsteps. I was annoyed at my newfound peace being disrupted and turned around to find the source of the unwelcomed interruption. I saw a familiar flash of bronze hair a second before the footsteps slowed and my name was called out into the clearing.

"Bella?!"

It seemed like I was running into Edward Cullen everywhere – or he was literally running towards me. "Edward," I answered back, lifting my hand to give him a small wave.

"What are you doing here?" He was in front of me now, his face flushed from the running he was in the middle of before he spotted me. Beads of sweat were running down the sides of his face, to his neck and further under the T-shirt he was wearing.

"Well I was enjoying the peace and quiet until someone came barging through my clearing, heavy breathing and all."

He laughed, putting a hand through his slightly sweat-dampened hair, which glinted both red and gold in the sunlight. "Your clearing?" he asked indignantly, his lips pulled up into a small smile that was just a little off-centre. "I'm pretty sure you're in the middle of my daily running route."

I chuckled, not at all surprised that he ran on a daily basis. You didn't get to look like he did without working at it, no matter what every other actor and actress in Hollywood would have the general public believe. Alice had been right on the money when she had implied that she thought Edward Cullen was on a different level of handsome. I had noticed it the very first time I saw him, but it hadn't really sunk in until I saw him again the day after at the coffee shop. He wasn't traditionally good-looking, in my view, not the way Jake was, but the way his jaw was angled, the way his eyes were lit and the way his smile was just slightly off centre all came together to make up what was an admittedly breathtaking man.

"A running route?" I scoffed. "I had no idea you were so vain Mr. Cullen." I was well aware that I was talking to him as if I'd known him for years rather than for the total time of 2 hours, but I just found it extremely easy to do so. In fact, I was doing it without realising it the majority of the time.

"I'm not," he said, seeming a little confused with the direction I was taking. "I like running to think, you know? It's just a really good way to clear your mind."

I shook my head emphatically. "No, I don't know." I told him honestly, laughing. "I hate any form of exercise and I can't even imagine it ever being something I do to clear my mind."

"You don't know what you're missing," he assured me. "So, what were you doing here before I interrupted you with my unruly running?"

I shrugged. "I was just enjoying this place. I didn't know it was here and it's so beautiful here, so quiet."

He nodded, looking over my head to the clearing behind me. "Yeah, it's a little different from the rest of the city isn't it?"

"Just a little. How long have you been disrupting the peace here?"

"About 6 months," he answered, starting to walk to the middle of the stretch of grass that I had been sitting on before. "I found it a little after I moved here. I was looking for a place to run that didn't fill my lungs with pollution and I'd been getting fed up with the sand in my shoes when I did it on the beach."

"Yeah, I kinda hate the beach for that very reason myself." I agreed, walking faster to catch up with him; the guy had impossibly long legs.

He was now sitting in practically the same spot I had been occupying, looking up at me in an invitation for me to sit next to him, which I did. "You hate the beach? I thought you were a born and bred native?"

"And you know that about me how?" I asked, confused because I had never mentioned that I actually came from California to him before.

He looked a little embarrassed as he answered. "Google."

My mouth dropped open and surprise and I think a look of pure panic may have crossed my face because he immediately looked worried and apologetic instead of just plain ashamed of his admission.

"I'm not stalking you or anything," he assured me quickly, backing away. "Rosalie looked you up after she met you. She's just like that. I'm really sorry. I told her not to, but she just...she can't be stopped."

My mind was still reeling from the fact that he knew things about me that I didn't tell him. I have always been an extremely private person and even though I was in this industry, I still did. It was important to me, not to have people who didn't know me know personal information about me. The fact that anyone could access information about me by just logging onto a computer freaked me out, but the fact that someone would actually do that freaked me out a lot more. Was I okay that the blond I had only met once had done that? No, I sure as hell wasn't. Was I okay that Edward knew things about me that I hadn't told him? Kind of and I found that immensely confusing. I mean it was a little strange, but I was fairly certain that Edward Cullen was not some obsessive stalker who would end up breaking into my home in the middle of the night to watch me sleep. If anything, I was more annoyed at the fact that the balance of information was not equal now.

"I promise you don't have to get a restraining order," he assured me, his face asking for me to understand.

I didn't say anything because I was trying to figure out why I wasn't angrier at him for knowing this stuff. I was a little angry at Rosalie because she shouldn't have invaded my privacy like that. She obviously didn't understand what it was like to live in the world that I did, constantly having to hide anything and everything if you didn't want it splashed all over a gossip magazine. If I had found out that anyone else had done this, even if it was their friend's fault, I would have gone insane. I would have shouted and screamed and threatened to call the police. I would not be sitting here more or less calmly, thinking about why I wasn't angry at this guy in front of me.

Edward was looking extremely anxious and a little defeated as I continued to stay silent. I didn't find my voice until he was getting up to leave, thinking that I wanted him as far away from me as possible. I guess that would be the most reasonable thing to do, but the reasonable me obviously left my body.

"Where did you move from?" My voice was too loud for the quiet in the clearing, but it made him stop walking away.

He looked back at me, confusion written all over his features. "New York," he answered, but it sounded like a question. I guess it was. He was asking me why I wasn't telling him to stay the hell away from me and not even think about coming to the next audition. I wanted to know that myself.

"You don't seem like you're from New York," I told him, willing for him to just come back and sit down."

He shook his head and walked back towards me, but didn't move to take a seat next to me. He was giving me space. "I'm not. You asked where I'd moved from."

I chuckled and rolled my eyes at his pedantic response. "Okay, Edward Cullen, where are you from?"

He smiled at me then for the first time since he had told me about the Googling, but he was still standing and a good foot away from me. "Chicago."

"A Mid-west boy?" I stood up, willing him to understand that I wasn't angry at him, that I didn't want him to feel uncomfortable around me. I didn't know what the hell I was doing and I didn't want to. I liked Edward. I felt as if we could be friends and that was a rare thing to find, for me anyway.

He looked down at me, his eyes questioning, but he didn't voice it. "The best kind."

I smiled at him and walked over to where he was standing. "So what brings you to the sunny shores of LA?" I thought I already knew the answer to my question because really there was only one reason someone would move to this particular part of California.

He shrugged. "The career choice I guess." Theory correct. "But sometimes I really don't know."

That was interesting. I guess my expression showed my confusion at his answer because he carried on talking without my having to say anything.

"Sometimes I don't know if it's worth the move," he explained. "I mean I want to do this, really give this whole acting thing a chance because I do love it, but this place...this life..."

I nodded. "Yeah, I know what you mean." I did know what he meant although he hadn't really voiced it. He didn't need to. I felt that way all the time, as if I was fighting a battle within myself. I wanted to be an actress, I wanted to make movies that meant something to people, but I didn't want the world that came with it. I was a simple, normal girl even though my experiences thus far have not exactly been all that normal. Sometimes I felt as if I was in the eye of a storm and I was more lost than I would ever admit to being. Somehow I saw that Edward got that and perhaps this was why I was so comfortable around him even though I didn't know him.

He looked at me for a few moments, as if he was trying to decide whether I really did know what he meant and as his eyes met mine, I was uncomfortable for the first time since I met him. I felt as if I was under his scrutiny and for some reason, I didn't want him to find me lacking in some way. Edward's gaze made me feel like I was revealing far more to him than I should be, than I wanted to be and it was taking everything I had to not squirm.

He broke eye contact first and turned his face to look at the trees beyond. "I don't suppose you've had lunch yet have you?"

I felt relief as I shook my head and he suggested that we go to the coffee shop for a bite to eat. I was agreeing without really thinking about whether or not I needed to get back to the audition building because I wasn't thinking about the building at all. I was just so glad that he had stopped trying to read me, because I was pretty sure that's what he was trying to do when he was looking at me like that – at least that's what I felt like he was doing. I followed him, my mind awhirl with questions about why I acted so differently around Edward Cullen. I didn't feel like myself when I was with him, yet I never felt so understood by someone I didn't really know. I felt so jarred by his presence, but yet I felt in utter ease. I didn't know what was happening, why this guy had me so jumbled up about myself.

I was thankful that the blonde, Rosalie, was not there today because I sure as hell would have given her a piece of my mind, confused or not. Edward explained that she was a college student and was probably in a lecture at the moment and apologised once more about her snooping. I told him it was nothing, although really it was a huge thing, and he raised an eyebrow at me as if he knew I was lying. When I asked what she was studying, he shocked me to the core with his response. I think the shock showed on my face because he laughed and told me that Rosalie's chosen degree had that effect on everyone. I was a little embarrassed at my judgemental reaction to the revelation that she was studying Astro-physics because I had obviously judged her on appearance. When I first saw Rosalie, I had assumed she was an aspiring model, or actress or singer. Basically, I had assumed that like every other person in LA, she wanted to break into the entertainment industry and with the way she looked, I had thought that she wouldn't have any problems doing so. It had never occurred to me that she would be here without a single thought of being famous. It never crossed my mind that she would be doing something so...academic and I was thoroughly ashamed of myself.

I was also a little intimidated by the girl now and that did not happen to me. I wasn't intimidated by anyone. I had worked with some of the best people in my field before I was even considered an adult, but knowing that the stunning girl I had met briefly only a few days ago was not only that beautiful but incredibly smart as well made me feel inferior. I felt as if I had done nothing, achieved nothing with my life even though I knew that was absolutely not the case. It was a very disconcerting feeling for me and I felt even worse about myself because I had never thought I was so damn arrogant before. This day really had not turned out the way I thought it would.

**EPOV**

"So how did the two of you meet?" Bella asked me. She had been a little on the quiet side since we had left the clearing and at first I wondered whether she thought she was going to be seeing Rose at the coffee shop. I would have understood her hesitance at being in the same place as the girl who had Googled her because of simple curiosity. I was extremely surprised that she didn't run screaming from me when I told her that my friend had Googled her. However, she was still quiet after I assured her that Rosalie would not be there and I was questioning my impulse to invite her to lunch. I had just been so relieved that she didn't scream at me and run in the other direction that I wanted more time with her to prove that I wasn't a psycho. I was noticing a pattern in my interactions with Bella and I didn't exactly like it; I was always coming off like an obsessive stalker. It was a wonder she was speaking to me at all.

"Rose and I?" I asked, clarifying. "We met when I backpacked through Europe about 5 years ago. I worked in a pub in England that she frequented."

"You backpacked through Europe?" she asked, the surprise in her tone joined with incredulity.

"Yeah, did I not mention it the other day?"

She shook her head. "You just mentioned France."

I thought back to our conversation on Friday and realised that I had indeed only mentioned being in France because we had gotten on to another subject. "Oh, right. Yeah, well I graduated high school early and thought I'd experience the world a little. I think I was trying to find out what I wanted to do with my life. Find myself or something."

She smiled at that, her eyes showing understanding and a slight longing that I couldn't even begin to find deeper meaning to. I didn't know this girl. No matter how easy it was to talk to her, she was still a stranger. "And did you? Find yourself I mean?"

I looked at her for a moment, considering my answer. I, of course, hadn't really revealed the whole reason I went to Europe to find myself, but I wasn't going into that with her. I had come back from my travels a different person, yeah, but even now I didn't know if the different person was who I was or who I wanted to be. I still didn't even know if those were two different people, or just different sides of the same coin. "I guess I did, yeah." I told her, shrugging and dropping my head to look at my plate. I took a bite of my sandwich and refused to look back at her and I knew she didn't really believe me, but we didn't know each other and secrets weren't meant to be told to strangers.

After a few minutes of silence where we both ate our food and pretended like it wasn't awkward between us, the silence was broken by the shrill ringing of a cell phone. My phone was in my pocket on vibrate, meaning that I knew it wasn't mine. Instead, I saw Bella jump and pull her black cell out of the pocket of her jeans. She glanced down at the caller id and her brows furrowed in confusion.

"Alice?" she asked when she flipped the phone open. I turned my head to the side, looking out of the window, not wanting to listen in to what could be a private conversation.

"I'm eating lunch, why?" Bella asked. I couldn't help but hear her.

"Shit!" I looked around at her, my eyebrows raised in a silent question, but she shook her head and I took it to mean that she couldn't answer me right away. "I'll be back in like fifteen minutes Al. Just cover for me a little while."

I didn't know what the person on the other end of the line said in response to that, but after a while Bella sighed and said goodbye. Before I could even ask what was wrong, she was standing up, telling me that she had to go back to the audition building because they were supposed to have started reading the next scene ten minutes ago.

"I guess I'll see you Thursday then Bella," I said as she started walking away from the table that we had been sharing.

She turned back around and smiled at me. "Yeah. It was nice talking to you Edward, even if you did disturb my only sliver of peace and quiet."

I chuckled and waved goodbye, watching her walk out of the coffee shop and around the corner as I had done 3 days ago. There was something about Isabella Swan that always left me feeling confused. I could read her face so well, but there were several things she was keeping back, I was sure. The three times I had been in her company, I always left it feeling a little dazed and very confused, but I couldn't exactly say what I was confused about. I guess I was a little confused about her, but that was just a small part of the bewilderment really. I guess Rosalie is right, I think far too much.

*

I was on my way to meet Jasper at the gym when my cell rang on Tuesday morning. The number that flashed on my screen was a very familiar one, but one I had not seen in about two and a half years and I prayed to whichever deity was listening that it was a wrong number. No such luck.

"Mr. Cullen?" an unfamiliar female voice asked.

"Speaking," I answered, unsure whether I was the one that should be taking this phone call. Carlisle usually handled these things, but I guess he wasn't picking up or they would never have called me.

"Mr. Cullen I'm calling in regards to your mother," the voice informed me, as if it could have been about anything else. As far I knew there was no other member of my family in that place. I didn't even bother giving a response, but after a while, I think she got the message because she did carry on. "Your mother was involved in an incident in the early hours of this morning," she explained. "She's currently in hospital."

"What?!" I asked, a panicked feeling I associated with my childhood rising within me. "What kind of incident?"

"I'm afraid she tried to take her own life," the woman said, her voice quiet and full of sympathy.

I don't remember the rest of the conversation because all of a sudden, I was transported back to when I was thirteen and the first time my Mom harmed herself. I was the one who found her. I had gotten back from school to find my Mom on the kitchen floor, her right wrist leaking a red liquid that I didn't realise was blood until I say her still clawing at the skin with a steak knife. I had thought then that she was trying to kill herself, but it turned out that this was not the case. My mother had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 21 and this was not the first time that she had harmed herself. It turned out that Carlisle had found her in pretty much the same state about 6 months after Dad had left. I didn't know all this until I turned 16. All I was told when I was 13 was that my mother was extremely unwell and she would have to stay in hospital for a while. Carlisle was in college, but he returned home for a semester to look after me. When my Mom got back, she apologised and everything was fine for a while. It got worse again when I was 16 and this time there was no getting better. My Mom was committed for her own safety when I was 17, which was half the reason I went to the other side of the world.

I didn't remember calling Carlisle with the news, but somehow he was knocking on my door and we were calling airlines together trying to get a flight out to Maryland as soon as possible. Every time this happened with my Mom, I was transported back to being a helpless teenage boy watching his mother bleed to death in front of his eyes. I hated my inability to cope with these situations, whereas my brother seemed to know exactly what to do and what to say. I guess that's why he was the doctor and I was just some kid who made a living pretending to be someone else. Maybe I loved acting so much because the worlds that I was living in for those few weeks or months were always controlled. I always knew what was going to happen to the character I was playing and if I didn't like it, I knew that my real life was waiting just as soon as I finished. That was not the case for everyday life; if I didn't like what it had in store for me, I didn't have a choice but to live through it.

Rosalie called my cell as I was heading for O'Hare, worried about me. Apparently Carlisle had written her a note briefly telling her what had happened and where we were going, which I was glad about because I hadn't even thought about Rosalie. She knew about my Mom of course, but had never met her because I had never asked her to come with me on the occasions that I visited and she never pressed the issue. There were certain things that Rose and I knew not to press the other one on. I would never bring up the whole Royce King affair, or her parents and she would never mention mine. We may have known each other's deepest secrets, but it didn't mean that we talked over them in our spare time. We weren't that masochistic.

The plane ride was silent and anxious. I don't think Carlisle and I knew what to say to each other because frankly we had been through this situation and many situations like it too many times to have anything left to say. Instead we were both lost in our own memories and our own feelings of guilt. I knew it wasn't my fault that my mother was sick, knew that there was nothing I could do and that she was in the best place possible, but it didn't make it any better. It didn't make me feel better about the fact that I had to take a 3 hour plane ride to go and see my sick mother when I felt like I should be taking care of her. When I was younger I always promised myself that I wouldn't abandon her like my father had abandoned us all, but was I any better? I hadn't seen my Mom since I left New York, too caught up in my own life, too busy with things that weren't really that important in the long run. At least Carlisle was busy saving other people and trying to make the world a better place. What exactly was it that I was doing? Playing make believe? Sometimes I really wondered when the hell I would grow up.

"Don't," Carlisle admonished quietly about two hours into the journey.

"Don't what?"

He looked at me pointedly. "I know you Edward and I know that right now you're talking yourself into feeling guilty about this. It's not your fault and I can't even count how many times I've had to tell you the same thing through the years."

I sighed in frustration, but whether it was at myself or Carlisle, or the situation, I didn't know anymore. "I know Mom being sick isn't my fault Carlisle," I tell him honestly because really, I had accepted this years ago. "I just...I can't believe that I left her and for what?"

"To live your life Edward," Carlisle said, exasperation evident in his voice. "Do you honestly think that Mom would want you to put your life on hold for her forever? She always did everything she could to make sure that we followed our dreams."

"Yeah, exactly, sacrifice," I argued. "She gave everything for us Carlisle and I can't even take a plane ride to see her once in a while? What the hell kind of son am I?"

"You're a great son Ed," he told me fiercely. "You were there for her when you were only a kid yourself. You took the brunt of the burden when you were 16 and you tried your damned hardest to look after her. You cannot possibly think that you haven't done enough for her."

I didn't answer him because he would have just argued with me anyway. Had I done enough for my Mom? I didn't think so. If I had tried harder, done more when I was younger then she wouldn't be where she was now, surely? A part of me knew that it didn't work like that, that a kid couldn't possibly have coped with everything that happened then, but another part of me felt like I hadn't tried hard enough, I hadn't been strong enough. Carlisle always hated the way I shouldered our mother's illness, but there was absolutely nothing he could do to talk sense into me when I was like this, no matter how many times he tried and no matter how much sense he actually made.

We landed shortly after 5pm Eastern time and we were at the hospital for 6pm. Mom was in the Psychiatry unit, drugged up and bound just in case she harmed herself again. I hated seeing her like this; it was a scene that I had seen in my nightmares when I was 13 for three whole months and every now and again since then. She was in a private room and the silence was only broken by the beep of machines our breathing. I felt tears in my eyes and I looked at the wall over her head instead of down at her still body. I saw Carlisle go over by her bedside and stroke her hair from her forehead, whispering things to her that I couldn't decipher, whilst I was just trying not to break down beside her like a scared little boy wanting his Mommy to just wake up.

Carlisle looked up at me after ten minutes of just sitting with Mom, but I couldn't meet his eyes. He didn't say anything, but instead whispered something about talking to her doctors and left me in the room, knowing that I wouldn't be able to break down in front of him now, like I had so many times in our youth. I was much too prideful to have my older brother see me regress back to my 13 year-old self. It took me a further 5 minutes of steeling myself before I could go and sit by my mother's bedside and take her hand in mine, thinking back to the time she had done the same thing for me when I got appendicitis at the age of 8 and I'd been so scared to get the operation.

"Oh Mom," I cried out into the small room. I didn't have anything else to say. Everything that wanted to come out of my mouth had been said before; empty promises and useless questions. I felt like we were just going around in circles and I didn't know when the hell any of us would be able to get off. Instead, I just sat with her, telling her I loved her because that was the only thing that mattered, the only thing that I could never lie about and the only promise I would never break.

I was 16 when the situation with my Mom reached its height. Carlisle was in his third year of medical school at John Hopkins and I was busy navigating my way through life at your average American high school. Well, sort of. I may have been the perfect student by day, keeping a near perfect GPA, being captain of the baseball team and class president, but at night, I was coming apart at the seams. When I got home every night, homework was the last thing on my mind. The only thing that mattered when I walked through the doors of my childhood home was my Mom and looking after her. I was the only person making sure that she stayed on her medication and that she wasn't starting to hallucinate again. I thought I had been doing a good job because she hadn't tried anything since I caught her trying to swallow more pills than a pharmacy could hold six months ago. Sometimes, I would have to miss a couple of classes to keep her company, or to check on her, but I was managing and we were both okay.

I couldn't have been more wrong. I had thought that it was enough to have someone watch over her in the morning whilst I was at school and I would take over in the afternoon. I didn't imagine that the system would ever break down because I was never late and as far as I knew, the nurses that the agency sent were trust-worthy and professional. I didn't know that the temporary nurse, Lauren, who had been watching my Mom whilst Bree was on vacation, had popped out for an hour or so one day, leaving my Mom to find a place to hide her pretty white pills from me. From that day on, none of her medication was actually being taken. She would put it in her mouth, pretend to swallow it as I watched her, wait for me to leave and then spit it out to hide it.

I lived my life for three months completely oblivious to the fact that my mother was once again having conversations with people trying to convince her that she had poison in her body and the only way to get rid of it was to bleed it out – or something else to the same effect. It wasn't until I went to check on her one Tuesday night that that I found her in bed, blood seeping into the yellow sheets. I froze in the doorway, sure that I had actually fallen asleep downstairs and was having a nightmare. There was no way on this earth that this could be happening. I was so careful; I had been doing so well. My Mom was better now, she wasn't sick anymore. This couldn't actually be real.

I don't exactly know what happened after I found her there because I acted on autopilot, without thought or conscious decisions. The first real memory I have of that night that wasn't tinged with the sickening deep red that was leaking from my mother's arms was being in the hospital room with her after her operation. It was a scene much like the one I was in right now and the feelings were exactly the same. I had failed her again. No matter what I did, how old I was and how far I had come in my life, I would always fail the one person in the world that mattered most to me.

Carlisle came back twenty minutes after he had left, telling me that we should come back tomorrow when she was awake and more lucid. There wasn't any lasting damage because she had been stopped before she could do anything that could not be treated. She had some major burns to her hands and some cuts on her arms, but she was being treated for both the pain and the infection risk. The hospital staff didn't know too much about what had been happening in the psychiatric facility that our mother lived in, so Carlisle and I were going to be speaking with them first thing in the morning before we came back to visit her. We said our goodbyes, each kissing her on the forehead in much the same manner she used to do to us when we were younger.

*

It turned out that our mother hadn't been taking her meds for the past 18 weeks, but instead had been keeping a nice little pile of them under her bed, a trick that had used when she first went into the facility. I had a hard time not shouting at all the staff and telling them that that they needed to do their jobs better and really the only reason I didn't do it was because Carlisle would have been extremely pissed off at me had I run my mouth off. I thought it though and there were a few times that I made sarcastic comments about the fact that they had no idea what my mother had been up to, didn't notice any of the warning signs that meant she was close to the edge. I had been a kid all those years ago when I missed the signals, but these people were supposed to be professionals. It was what they were trained to do for crying out loud.

We got to the hospital just before lunch, but I hesitated before going into the building, something which Carlisle noticed.

"You okay?" he asked, stopping in front of me and turning around.

I shrugged. "I've been better."

He gave me a tight smile, but said nothing and just stood there, waiting for me to either take the next step or talk some more. I chose to do the latter, figuring that it was easier than having to go into the room and face my mother, not knowing whether or not she would be lucid enough to have a real conversation with.

"How do you handle it Carlisle?"

He breathed out loudly and deeply, shaking his head. "I handle it because I have to Edward," he told me simply. "I don't know why you have this impression that I handle the situation with Mom better than you because I don't. Do you not think that I feel as sick as you do every time we have to walk into a hospital room and see her lying there hooked up to machines and knocked out?"

"It just always seems like you're on top of everything Carlisle," I argue back. "It's like you always know what to do and say and I just...I just want to know how to handle it better."

"I'm not on top of anything Ed," Carlisle admitted to me, his voice quiet. "You're not the only one lying awake at night wondering what he could have done to make this better. I'm a doctor and I know that Mom is in the best possible place for her and there is nothing more I could do and yet, I still feel like I've failed her."

I looked at him aghast. He had voiced exactly what I was feeling and for the first time in a long time I saw Carlisle as just a man. I have always idolised my older brother, probably because he took on the role of a paternal figure in my life so well after our father left. I always thought he could do no wrong and he was the perfect model of what it was to be a brother and a son. But now, here in the shadow of the hospital building, I saw my brother with all the worries and the insecurities that I had too and that made me feel better, like I wasn't so alone in all of this.

*

Mom was being served lunch when we arrived at her room. She looked up and smiled when we walked in and I was once again a little boy walking into my Mom's room looking for her to tell me that my nightmares weren't going to come true.

"Hello boys," she greeted in a rather hoarse voice from the tube that had been stuck down her throat mere hours ago.

"Hey Mom," Carlisle said, leaning down and kissing her on the cheek. I followed suit, sitting down on the opposite side of her bed from my older brother, wondering whether she would remember anything that happened before she woke up this morning.

She didn't say anything for the longest time and Carlisle and I just looked at each other, not knowing how to start a conversation with her. Usually, she remembered at least a little of everything that happened, but she would either pretend she didn't, or tell us that she didn't want to talk about it. Mom had told us several times that she always felt as if she were letting us down as a mother by being like this and it had absolutely broken my heart at the time, as I'm sure it broke Carlisle's. I wouldn't say that I would wish this illness on my Mom, but there wasn't a better mother in the world than she was and I wouldn't change her for the world. That was probably one of the reasons seeing her in the middle of a bad patch so hard for us, because we knew that it was in these moments that she felt unworthy of our love and that couldn't have been further from the truth.

"How are you boys doing these days?" she asked, her voice falsely light and cheerful, as if we weren't all sitting here because she had once again tried to kill herself.

"We're fine Mom," Carlisle answered. "We're more concerned with how you are."

She looked up at him from the patterns she was making with her mashed potatoes. "I'm feeling a little sore, but you boys didn't need to fly out all this way to come and see me."

I snorted rather loudly, ensuring that both of their heads were now turned towards my direction. "I think you trying to kill yourself necessitated mine and Carlisle's trip out Mom," I said bluntly. I hated when she pretended that there was nothing wrong with her and that she was just recovering from a silly cold, or something. Sometimes I could swear she didn't see the exact severity and seriousness of her condition. She didn't see, or didn't want to acknowledge it.

Carlisle glared at me, but I ignored him, keeping my eyes focused on my mother, who was now looking down at her tray once more. No one said anything for a few tense moments, but after a while my mother took a deep breath in and looked over at me, her green eyes exactly like the ones that stared back at me from a mirror. "I didn't try to kill myself Edward," she whispered. "You know that."

I shook my head. "No, I don't know that Mom," I argued, not heeding the steely gazes that Carlisle was shooting in my direction. I did not want to pretend that everything was alright. I wanted to know that I wasn't going to have the same phone call in a few months' time telling me exactly the same thing. "What I do know is that you keep not taking your medication even though you know what it does to you, so yeah, you might not have had the intention of killing yourself when you took all those pills, but I don't know that you didn't when you stopped taking your meds."

I was on my feet by the time I finished and my voice had risen far more than I had wanted it to. I just wanted to understand all of this and it frustrated the hell out of me that I didn't. All these years looking for answers and still coming up with nothing. It wasn't that I wanted to know why this was happening to my Mom because I knew that would never be answered. What I did want to know was why my Mom kept doing this to herself. It seemed as if she was knowingly stopping herself from living a somewhat normal life and she needed to face up to that fact so that she could get over it. If she was reliable in taking her medication, she wouldn't need to be in the facility at all. She could live in LA with me and I could look after her again like I had done when I was younger, like I wanted to now.

I left the room before I could say anything else. I couldn't be in there without losing my control. I was just so..._**angry**_ and I didn't know who with anymore. Maybe I was angry at everyone and everything. This was a small fraction of what I had felt when I left the US at 17 and went travelling around the world. I was searching for meaning, searching for answers to questions I didn't know to ask. I had lost myself and perspective in my life when my mother first entered the Psychiatric facility. I didn't know what to do and so I ran as far away as I could get. Obviously now, I was pretty much doing the same thing; running. Would I ever stop?

* * *

**AN: I have answered everyone's reviews I think, but thank you again. I'm not medically qualified, so if anything that is related to medicine is incorrect (which I'm pretty sure it will be), I apologise. The ultimate aim of this story is for Edward and Bella to be together because really that's the entire point of the series. However, they aren't there yet and there are several stories to tell, not just how they get to the end point. I just feel as if I should warn everyone in case you expect them to be together by the next few chapters. Sorry, but I hope you enjoy the journey anyway.**


	5. Chapter 5 Quality Time

**AN: I don't own anything that you publicly recognise. In fact, I don't own anything that you don't recognise either, I'm sure. Real people belong to themselves and Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer.**

**Chapter 5: BPOV**

Seth Murphy was probably one of the sweetest and most genuine people I had ever met and the audition on Wednesday was surprisingly pleasant – a complete departure from the previous 2 days. When I had gotten back to the audition building on Monday, James was smirking at me and loving the fact that I was the one who was late and looking a little unprofessional. He had not bought Alice's story that I had gone back home because my brother had left the oven in my apartment on, but luckily Sue did, so she didn't absolutely go insane when I walked into the large room as they were half way through what was supposed to be the scene after the one that I would have been needed for. I watched the scene, amazed at the fact that James really was a very talented actor and he could have done amazing things, but instead had wasted all his talent and energy on being a Grade A idiot. The rest of the readings we had together were rather painful for me because the guy still didn't know the meaning of personal space, no matter how many hints I kept throwing in his face (or more appropriately stamping on his foot). The guy was relentless and when I went home at the end of the day, I had to take a shower just to wash the smell of him from me.

Tuesday had been better only because the guy, Embry, hadn't tried to stick his tongue in my mouth at every opportunity. That being said, his acting was outright awful. I didn't remember him from the other faceless wannabes that had auditioned in the previous three weeks and I understood why. I don't exactly know why they called him back, but if he was the best of the rest, I was completely justified in forcing Sue's decision on this matter. I found it hard not to cringe when he tried to speak with an English accent because really from his portrayal, people could have mistaken Rob as having come from the Deep South. The intense scenes that were supposed to show the love and desperation between the two characters ended up seeming like they were taken straight out of some teenage high school drama. It was such a shame that he was such a bad actor because as a guy, he was really nice; I certainly preferred him being around over James.

I didn't exactly have the highest expectations when I walked into the room again on Wednesday even though Jake had told me that Seth had a very good reputation. Apparently, he was working with some people who had been in Seth's last movie and they had all found him to be both hard-working and extremely pleasant to be around. He was already in the room shaking hands with a few other members of the cast when I walked in that morning and he smiled at me as I walked towards where he and Alice were standing. He held out his hand for me to shake as he told me his name. That was a good start; the kid didn't automatically expect me to know who he was even though he'd been the talk of the town for a good year or so. An even better sign was the fact that the hand shake was about as much contact as he was going to try for. I was already feeling a lot better than I had on Monday morning before we even began the scenes.

Seth Murphy deserved the hype that was surrounding him at the very moment. He was an extremely good actor and there wasn't a doubt in my mind that he would be among the greats of our generation. However, he didn't connect with the character in the way either James or Edward did. I guess everyone interprets the motivations of a character in a different way and will therefore portray them differently, but the other two guys had a darkness behind their eyes that really gave depth to their interpretations of him. There were layers of pain and desperation in Edward's whole being when he played this part opposite of me and no one else thus far had even given an inkling of that, even James. I didn't think that it was Seth's age that made it seem as if he couldn't go to the same depths within himself as the other two actors because he was only two years younger than Edward, but there was definitely something missing. His acting was intense and it was good, but this part wasn't made for him, not yet anyway.

Still, Seth got on so well with the rest of the entire cast and I was so relieved that I was over half way through the final leg of auditions that we all decided to go out that night. It was Alice's idea really and I had a feeling that what she really wanted was for an excuse to go to Jasper's bar again even though they'd already been on another date since she went with her friends to check it out last week. It was a little strange to see how well Seth fit in with the rest of the cast and know that he wouldn't be getting the part; it made me feel a little guilty. Not guilty enough to second guess my actions, but definitely guilty enough to agree to go out with everyone even though I was notorious already for turning down invitations to bond outside of allocated work times. Alice requested that I get ready with her, but I politely refused, pointing out that I had years of experience getting myself dressed. She tried a bit longer, but I kept refusing and eventually she let me escape home in my red truck, which she sped past only two minutes later, honking her horn as she went.

I called Jake as soon as I got home and fixed myself something to eat because I wouldn't get chance to talk to him later tonight like I normally would.

"Hey babe," I greeted when he answered. "How was your day?"

"You're calling early," he observed. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

I chewed the lasagne quickly and swallowed before I answered. "I'm going out tonight with some of the cast and I don't think I'll be able to talk later, so tell me how your day was now."

Jake's deep laugh sounded from the other end and a twinge of sadness swept through me; I missed him. "It was okay," he told me. "We were just rehearsing and a couple of the scenes were pretty rough, especially since we had to go over them again and again."

"Learnt anything new today?"

"Too many things. Seriously Bells, some of these people are just...they're amazing you know?" Jake enthused. "And Emmet, the director? Well, he is a complete visionary and I swear this man is going to change the face of film making."

"The next Spielberg huh?" I asked, amused and excited by his level of amazement at the people he was working with. I had heard of Emmet Mc Carty before Jacob had gotten the role in his new film and I knew exactly what kind of genius this guy was. He literally burst onto the scene and wowed the industry with his fresh take on a very old job. His first film won him a best director nomination at the Oscars four years ago and it was very well deserved. His next film won a best film award at the Golden Globes and was nominated for the Oscar in the same category, narrowly missing out to a Baz Luhrman epic. He was the shit around town right now and yet he still preferred working with little known actors. Apparently he hated big egos and wasn't about to allow some 'A-list' star ruin the easy-going vibe on his movie sets. There was a very private discussion between him and an indignant well-known female actress that had been posted all over the internet. Needless to say, his reputation got an even bigger boost whilst hers kind of went down the crapper.

Jake talked more about what he was up to and how he was getting on with the rest of the cast and crew. He even told me that he thought the two leads of the film were getting a little too close for people who had significant others at home. I laughed at this, but was immensely grateful that I had absolute certainty that Jake would never ever do that to me. Our relationship was based on the foundation of our friendship and that was sacred to the both of us. I respected him too much as a person, never mind my boyfriend, to ever think of cheating on him and I knew that he felt the same way. Besides there was no one else on earth that understood me the way Jacob did. He'd been my friend for far longer than he'd been my boyfriend that _**that**_was the relationship that neither of us would ever think about destroying with infidelity. Besides, how cliché was it to fall for your co-star. It wasn't big and it certainly was not clever.

"So, how did Alice get you to agree to go out with everyone?" Jacob asked me when he finished telling me how things were on his end.

"What makes you think it was Alice who coerced me into being somewhat sociable?"

He chuckled at this. "Because I know her, remember?"

I laughed with him. "Yeah, I guess you do, but to be honest, my arm didn't need much twisting on this one."

"Okay, who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend?" Jacob teased.

I rolled my eyes at his attempt at a joke even though he couldn't see me. I was sure he could picture me doing it. "I just thought it was time to broaden my horizons, especially since I won't be seeing you for another two and a half weeks."

He sighed. "Two and a half weeks too long. I miss you."

"I miss you too."

"Have you thought any more about moving in with me once these films are over?" he asked, catching me off-guard. He always seemed to spring that question on me when I was least expecting it, as if taking me by surprise would ensure that I would make my mind up faster.

"I honestly haven't thought about much past these next few months Jake," I tell him sort of honestly. It was true that I wasn't thinking much beyond the actual filming of this next movie, but I didn't think I would be ready to move in with him within the next year, never mind within less than six months. I guess this was one of the times when the couple of years age difference between us was noticeable. Obviously Jacob was ready to take the next step in our relationship whereas I wasn't. I still felt as if I was too young to make such a big commitment to someone, even if we had been together for over two years.

His answering sigh had a hint of defeat in it. "I guess that's understandable, but please promise me that the next time you're bored out of your head whilst some idiot is saying the wrong lines to you, you'll at least give it a second's worth of thought?" His voice held some bitter sarcasm that he tried to mask, but didn't successfully do so. I didn't want to get into a fight over the phone, so I just let it go, agreed and told him that I had to go because I needed to get ready to meet everyone. I still actually had three hours until I had to meet the rest of the cast for drinks, but I knew that our conversation would be uncomfortable and strained the rest of the time, so I cut my losses, so to speak.

I knew that Sam was right about my having to tell Jake the truth about not being ready to move in with him and give up my space and my home, but I couldn't exactly tell him all of this over the phone and it would be a while before I saw him again in the flesh. I was telling myself that I was saving the real talk about this until then, but deep down, I did question as to whether or not I had the courage to do it even then. Probably not. I could just picture myself putting off the talk until after we had both finished filming and he forced the issue to come to a head. This was something that had happened quite often during the course of our relationship. Jacob was quite confrontational in nature, preferring everything to be out in the open even if it did cause screaming matches. I like to ignore things until they were shoved so close to my face that I couldn't really turn a blind eye anymore. Immature yes, but I guess that was one of the things I still had in common with my Mom.

I answered emails that I had been neglecting for the past couple of weeks before I even started thinking of getting ready. There were a couple of emails from friends that I had made in my previous films. We didn't see each other often owing to busy schedules and the fact that many of them actually lived on the east coast now, but we kept in touch relatively regularly via email. There were a couple of emails from my manager with attachments regarding my schedule for the months ahead, which changed in every email. It took me much longer than I had anticipated sorting out the masses of mail that had managed to accumulate in my inbox, so much longer in fact that when I glanced the clock on my laptop, I jumped up and ran to the shower. Alice had already threatened me with 'pain beyond that which I could imagine' if I was late because she wanted to introduce me to Jasper before everyone else got there. I guess Alice had firmly established that we were friends now if she wanted me to meet the guy that she was dating. I don't know when our friendship got to this level of closeness, but she had obviously decided that it had and I was more than glad to go along with it. This whole friendship thing was much easier than I had thought it would be. Then again, Alice had actually made all the effort.

I dressed quickly, leaving my hair to dry naturally into the waves that I used to hate when I was younger, but now was quite fond of. The bar was quite close to where the audition building was, which meant that I had to drive thirty minutes across town to reach it. Alice was meeting me outside so that I wouldn't be carded and have my hand stamped. I may not have liked to get so drunk that I had to be carried home, but I did like a couple of beers with friends, even if I was only 18. I drove past the blue and white sign of Whitlock's, but there was nowhere to park on the street it was actually on, so I drove around a bit in order to find a space for my red truck. It was times like this that I seriously thought about buying a smaller car because really a truck this size was not ideal for living in a city.

I had to walk to the bar from my parking space and as I rounded the corner I spotted Alice immediately, though admittedly there were very few people around anyway. However, even if the sidewalk beside the bar had been packed with people, Alice Brandon in her bright green tunic dress and dark blue jeans that looked as if they had been painted on her slim legs, would have drawn attention in an instant. She looked amazing, but then again the girl kind of always did. Not only was Alice naturally beautiful, but she also had an amazing sense of style that didn't always match what was considered 'trendy' by everyone else, but certainly brought out all her best features. The funny thing about Alice was that I didn't get the impression that she tried too hard to look like she did. I think she was just born with the innate talent of being able to look good in anything she wore.

"Hey Bella," she greeted warmly, reaching out to give me a hug. Normally Alice would have to tip-toe to reach me, but with her four inch heels, we were almost at the same level. "Did you manage to find it okay?"

I nodded as she let go of me. "It was parking that took the longest to be honest. I think I'm parked three streets over. Have you been waiting long?"

"No," she answered as we walked into the bar straight past the bouncers who seemed to recognise Alice because they smiled at her and greeted her by first name. I wondered just how many times she had been here if she was on first name terms with the staff. Then again, Alice sort of did make friends quite quickly. "I only just got here myself when you showed up."

I took the time to look around the bar as Alice led me to what seemed to be the back. It was relatively quiet, but I didn't exactly expect it to be buzzing at 8:30 on a Wednesday. There were a few people sat on tables, drinking and laughing in groups whilst the music played softly in the background. The atmosphere was inviting, perfect for relaxing and having drinks with a group of friends, or in my case, work colleagues. The front of Whitlock's was decorated in much the same way as other trendy bars within the city, with slick metallic chairs at the actual bar itself and comfortable looking chairs littered around the rest of the room under some mood lighting. The back however, was not something that I would have expected and definitely not something that I had seen in many other bars in the city. The walls were made of stone, whether fake or an effect, I didn't know. There was a huge fireplace on the back wall that was certainly the main focal point of the reasonably sized room. Instead of the comfortable sofas that adorned the front of the bar, there were several worn-looking leather chairs and cloth covered armchairs. The furniture was mis-matched, but fit perfectly together and it was how I imagined a library would look like in the 19th century, minus the books.

"This place is amazing Alice," I told her honestly as we settled at a table in the far corner to the left of the fire that would be big enough for the group of people we were expecting.

She smiled at me and nodded her head in agreement. "I know right. I mean the front part's nice, but this back room is just...it's so quaint."

"That it is, though I'm sure he doesn't get to put an actual fire on in there too often in LA."

She shrugged. "The room wouldn't be the same without it though, right?"

I was just about to answer her when someone called my name from behind me. When I turned to look at who it was, I was very surprised to see a gorgeous blonde that I had only met briefly once before, Rosalie. I still wasn't thrilled at the fact that she had invaded my privacy by searching for information about me on the internet, but I guess now was not the time to bring it up and to be perfectly honest, it wasn't as if she looked for my address and telephone number.

"Hello Rosalie," I greeted, smiling as she came nearer to where Alice and I were sitting. She had apparently been on the other side of the fireplace because there were a few people at the table that she had just vacated following her progression towards me.

"Hey," she said, stopping short of our table. "What are you doing here?" The surprise was evident in her voice and if it hadn't been so, I would have been extremely insulted by her direct question.

"I'm just here to meet a few friends and get a couple of drinks," I answered, wondering what it was about this girl that both offended and terrified me simultaneously. "This is Alice Brandon."

Rosalie looked over at Alice for the first time, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "Do you know Jasper by any chance?" she asked my friend.

I followed her gaze to Alice who was nodding her head, looking extremely confused at the fact that Rosalie was here in front of us, talking to me like I knew her.

"So you're _**that**_ Alice." Alice and I exchanged a look of bewilderment when Rosalie said this, but she offered no further explanation as to what exactly she meant. Obviously Alice's reputation had preceded her, but what reputation that was exactly we couldn't be sure of. Alice looked back up at Rosalie, her expression completely baffled.

"I'm sorry, you are?" she asked politely.

Rosalie laughed. "Oh, I'm Rosalie Hale," she introduced, holding out her hand for Alice to shake, which she did. "I'm a friend of Jasper's and let's just say I've heard a thing or two about you Miss Brandon."

This piece of information caused Alice's face to change from confused to delighted and suddenly she was inviting Rosalie to sit with us and share exactly what Jasper had been saying about her. She was obviously curious as to what the guy had been telling his friends about her and positively giddy about the fact that he had mentioned her at all to people important to him.

"Sorry, but no can do," Rosalie declined politely. "I have to get back to my friends since I don't get to spend much alone time with them when Edward's home."

"Edward's not here?" I asked at the same time as Alice said: "You know Edward?"

Rosalie looked at me for a moment, her gaze unwavering and slightly disconcerting before she looked back at Alice and nodded her head. "Yeah, you could say I know Edward," she laughed. There was a glint in her eye and humour in her voice that I couldn't place and for some reason, I found it a little disturbing. "And no, Isabella, he's not here. He's out of town until tomorrow night."

"But his audition is tomorrow," I stated, pissed at the fact that he was blowing off the second audition when I had put my neck on the line to guarantee him the part. I had thought that he felt as strongly about the movie as I had, but if he wasn't even going to bother going to the second audition, he really couldn't have given that much of a crap about it.

She looked at me with that disturbing gaze again and I squirmed in my seat. "No, he called the studio on Monday night and rearranged his audition for Friday instead."

I was so relieved that she had said that and it was only then that I realised not only had I been pissed at Edward for potentially missing the audition, but I was also a little afraid that Sue would offer someone else the part because everyone else so far had sucked majorly for one reason or another. I hadn't realised the truth of my statement about how much I didn't want to do this film without Edward Cullen until that very moment and once again, I was confused about it.

Rosalie left, going back to her friends on the other side of the room and I was left with a very curious and slightly bewildered Alice. She asked me how Rosalie knew me and I had to tell her all about meeting Edward at the coffee shop nearly a week ago, to which she raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more. I felt as if Alice was judging me about talking to the guy outside of work hours and it made me feel a little indignant. Then again, I caught myself and wondered why the hell I was being so paranoid. I really needed to give Alice a break because she had been nothing but nice to me even though I had already snapped at her several times for absolutely no reason and I had kept rejecting her attempts at getting closer to me. No wonder I had very few female friends.

I had just made up my mind to try a hell of a lot harder with Alice when her face lit up with an expression that I would recognise on anyone. I looked behind me to see a tall, blond man walking towards the two of us, his expression very similar to Alice's. I guess this would be Jasper.

"Hi Jazz," Alice greeted, her smile so wide that I was surprised her face wasn't splitting.

"Hey," the man replied, staring at Alice as if he couldn't believe she was actually there. "Have you been here long?"

Alice shook her head and in doing so, her eyes slid over me and she finally noticed that I was still in the room, at the table in fact. "Bella and I have only just got here really."

Her mentioning my name made the blonde man rip his eyes away from hers and turn his head in my direction. He smiled at me in welcome and even though he had been a little rude before for not even acknowledging my presence, I forgave him because it obviously meant that he more than a little smitten with my friend.

"Nice to meet you Bella," he said sincerely, holding out his hand for me to shake, which I did with a genuinely warm smile.

"You too," I returned. "Are you joining us?"

"Sadly not." Jasper shook his head, his face a picture of regret and there was a hint of longing on his face as he glanced at Alice, which was definitely reflected back in hers. These two were slightly sickening. "I have rather a lot of work to do, but if you guys are still around when I finish, I'll gladly have a couple of drinks with you."

This last part was so obviously directed at Alice that Jasper didn't even need to look in her direction for her to light up like a 100W light bulb and then pink a little at her reaction. I got the impression from both Jake's stories and Alice's own attitude that she didn't blush often, but it certainly did suit her. She and Jasper exchanged loaded goodbyes that made me both miss my boyfriend and wonder whether all couples were this nauseating when they started dating, simultaneously. When Jasper walked back out to the front of the bar, waving at Rosalie on the way, Alice had her eyes trained to his butt the entire way until she couldn't see him anymore. She caught my eyes when Jasper had walked around the corner and she just shrugged and smiled at me, not at all ashamed at being caught checking him out. I rolled my eyes at her and laughed, asking her to go to the bar and get us both a drink so that she could have an excuse to go and ogle Jasper some more whilst he was working.

Alice didn't need to be told twice when I phased my request in such a way and hurried after Jasper's behind, giggling like a 15 year-old girl. I rolled my eyes at her antics, pulling out my cell phone in order to send my boyfriend a text message before Alice came back. Seeing her and Jasper dance around each other and act all cute and on the brink of something new really made me want Jake around. I guess it was always a little weird seeing two people who were obviously into each other when you were by yourself. It wasn't like they made me feel uncomfortable or left out, but couples tended to have a bubble around them that pushed other people away, whether intentionally or not. I sent Jake a text telling him I missed him and he replied with the same sentiment before Alice even got back with our drinks. I had a feeling she was flirting up a storm with the blonde owner because as far as I had seen, the bar hadn't been that busy when we came in.

I sat there for a good ten minutes waiting for Alice to come back and in that time, I switched seats so that I was facing the rest of the room instead of the wall so that if anyone else from the cast came in, I would be able to wave them over to the table. I didn't think Alice would be seeing anything at the bar besides Jasper's twinkling blue eyes. I caught Rosalie laughing with her friends on the other side of the room and wondered whether she and Edward were together. I didn't know where the thought came from, but I guess it was because I had nothing else to do but look around the room and think about the most random things. I hadn't initially gotten the vibe that they were together, but her comment about 'knowing him' and his protectiveness of her the other day definitely hinted that there was something between the two of them. They made a very good-looking couple (if indeed they were together) with her long, wavy blond hair that was in between the shades of honey and platinum and his unusual bronze mane. If he was ever to take her to a premier or an awards ceremony, they would definitely get the crowd screaming and the photographers fighting for the best shot. Rosalie and Edward would probably epitomise everything Hollywood held dear – physical perfection. Not that it didn't mean they didn't have anything else to offer, it just wouldn't matter to anyone else.

Alice finally came back, not only with two bottles of beer in her hands, but also Angela and Ben trailing after her with their own beers. So, Alice hadn't just been chatting up Jasper at the bar, but actually picking up at least some of the rest of our party. This was Angela's first big job, but I would never have known it from how professional she had been. She was an extremely nice woman, if a little shy. This meant that we hadn't actually said much to each other before now because her introvert personality and mine didn't a good conversation make. Still, now that we were in an actual social setting, she seemed to come out of her shell more and I found that she was an extremely easy person to talk to. She was genuinely interested in the things people were saying to her and she responded both appropriately and intelligently. She wasn't just nodding her head and making noises of agreement at the right points. What I did notice about Angela during our conversation, however, was the way her eyes would flick over to Ben when there was a little lull. Obviously the woman was harbouring a little crush on our co-star.

Thirty minutes later and the rest of the cast, plus Seth, had all shown up to the bar and were all sitting in a circle around the tables that Alice and I had reserved for us all. It was fun, being here with everyone, letting off steam from the week and generally just hanging out. It was nice to get to know these people outside of the work environment because really, that's when you really form connections with people. As actors and actresses, we were all very good at pretending to be other people, pretending that we were all best friends on screen was part of the job, but it was only when you actually hung out with people away from the camera that you could really tell whether or not you would be friends once the filming wraps and the credits roll. The set was a very different place from the outside world and it intensified a lot of relationships, meaning that you often found yourself hanging out with people that you wouldn't normally be friends with. However, I got the impression that I would be friends with this group of people long after Sue yelled the final cut.

Seth really was a nice, sweet guy and even though he was a couple of years older than me, I felt kind of protective of him. It was ridiculous really because he certainly didn't seem like a kid, just sort of...green. He had grown up just north of San Francisco, so although he was a Californian native, his up-bringing was the furthest thing from Hollywood that you could get. His parents were both teachers and his acting aspirations had literally come from nowhere. He had been spotted in his High School production of 'My Fair Lady' and was snapped up by an agent and sent to his first audition before he could even comprehend what was going on. It turned out that he was the luckiest bastard on the face of the earth because he got the very first part that he auditioned for and it was the part that had catapulted him into Hollywood's limelight. It probably couldn't happen to a nicer guy and he was very appreciative of all the opportunities and open doors that he had been presented with. He did confess to me, however, that he had actually been pushed to audition for the role and he didn't think he was the best person for the job.

"What?" I asked, confused that he would admit to such a thing. He had been drinking like the rest of us, but I didn't think he was drunk enough to start confessing his darkest secrets to someone he barely knew.

He shrugged and looked at me sheepishly. "I just...Rob's so dark and tortured, you know?" he whispered, looking to either side of him to make sure that no one else was listening to our conversation. They weren't. The others were busy arguing about which shots to buy. I nodded my head, signalling for him to continue. "I don't really think I can play him like that. I feel like whichever way I play him, he's going to come out much lighter than the character should be."

I opened my mouth to argue that he was a good actor and he would do the job properly, should he be offered it, but he didn't even let me get a word out before he carried on speaking.

"I probably shouldn't be telling you all this," he chuckled, throwing the rest of the beer bottle in his hand back. "There's nothing worse than spilling your insecurities about the film role you're up for to someone they cast to play the female lead."

"Don't worry about it Seth," I told him, patting him on the arm that was resting on the table in front of us. "I won't say anything to anyone. We all have our insecurities about the roles we're up for. We all think we may not be good enough to do them justice, but it doesn't mean that we aren't."

That was basically the only thing I could tell him that was in anyway consoling and encouraging without outright lying to him. I also didn't think that he was right for the part, but I was never going to say that to him. He was talented and new to the industry, but it was probably because of the way that he had come into the profession that prevented him from really getting into Rob's mind-set. Life and your experiences shape the person that you become and they certainly had a huge impact on the type of actor you became too. Even though James and Edward couldn't have been more different in the way they had come across, they had obviously both had something in their past that enabled them to feel the pain and the darkness that Rob did. Seth, on the other hand, had nothing in his life to draw on for those emotions and so he couldn't portray them with any real depth. In some ways, I hoped he never did, but then again if he didn't find a way to do it, he would never become the great actor that I thought he would one day be.

At around 12, everyone started to say their goodbyes, a lot less sober than they were when they first entered. Jasper called cabs for the people who didn't have anyone to drive them back after a pretty heavy night of drinking. Alice, however, was trying to convince me to stay out for a little longer so that she could wait for Jasper to finish whatever it was that he needed to do. I refused point blank because really, I had no intention of playing the very uncomfortable third wheel to their pre-mating dance. I had much rather get home and go to bed to sleep off the alcohol that I had consumed so that I could wake up in the morning without feeling like there was a steel band taking residence in my head. I left her at around 12:30 in the morning, promising that I would make it up to her by bringing her donuts and coffee in the morning when she would definitely need it. It was amazing that Alice hadn't passed out hours ago from the way she had been drinking from the very beginning of the night. Considering that she was not only short, but also quite slim, she could put away a hell of a lot of alcohol.

I collapsed into my bed at around one thirty in the morning, taking much longer than usual to brush my teeth and change into my pyjamas. As I drifted off to sleep, the very strange thought that went through my head was a question about what the hell could have been so important not only to take Edward away from a job that he seemed to care about, but also big enough for Sue to allow him to change the dates of his second audition. She hated being messed around and she despised actors not sticking to their commitments, so it must have been pretty major for her to have agreed for him to delay his audition. Scenarios swam in front of my very weary and slightly blurred eyes, each one blending into the other so that one minute I was fully aware that these scenes were playing behind my eyelids and the next, I was experiencing them in a completely different way.

*

**EPOV**

Being in Maryland with my Mom was not going well. I was still angry; at my Dad, at her, at life and most of all, at myself. I had thought that years away from this had given me perspective, that I had actually grown up and realised that some things just happened for no reason at all and that you couldn't control everything in life. It seemed as if my trip out here was also a trip back in time. I still hadn't gotten past my 13 year-old mentality about the whole situation and I felt sick at myself for it, but couldn't control the way I reacted. Carlisle and I had sat down with Mom and her psychiatrist, in an effort for everyone to understand what exactly was happening. I had gotten extremely agitated and pissed off about thirty minutes into the session and stormed out. Carlisle had gone after me and we had one of the worst arguments we'd had since I was 16 and he found out what I'd been trying to do for a year. After that, I got in the rental and just drove, not having a clue as to where I would end up. Interestingly enough, I found myself in DC looking out at the reflecting pond, wondering why I just couldn't let go.

I felt my cell phone vibrate in my pocket and took it out, thinking it was going to be Carlisle again. He had been calling me every five minutes since I walked away from him with the only means of transport we had. I hadn't answered a call and was about to choose to ignore it again when I recognised the number, not as Carlisle's but as Rosalie's.

"Hey Rose," I said into the phone, my voice flat even by my own reckoning.

"Hey," she replied. "How are you holding up?"

"Not great," I tell her honestly because really, I had no secrets from this woman and if anyone could understand what it felt like to always find yourself lacking when it came to the parentals, it was Rosalie Hale. "In fact, I'm not holding up at all."

"Carlisle called," she told me and I wasn't exactly surprised. If he couldn't reach me, he knew that Rosalie would, probably because I was a little scared of what would happen should I have the nerve to ever ignore her. I stayed silent, waiting for her to continue. "When are you guys flying back?"

"Around midnight, tonight," I tell her, glad that she was giving me an out for now. "I have to be at the audition by 11."

"Are you sure you're going to be up for it Ed?"

I sighed and ran a hand over my face. "Honestly Rose, I think I'll be kind of glad to just pretend to live someone else's life for a while."

"There's nothing wrong with you Ed," she tells me quietly, changing the subject back to what she had originally called me for. "You can't help the way you feel."

"Yeah, but I can help the way I act about those feelings," I argued. "And right now I'm acting like a huge jackass."

"Nothing new there my friend," she teases, but there's nothing biting about it and it sounds rather forced. She's silent for a moment and I stay quiet, waiting for the big Rosalie speech. She takes a deep breath and I know it's coming. "I think you just need to give yourself permission to feel angry and frustrated and cheated Edward because they are justified feelings on your part. You can't keep trying to save your Mom and your family and then blaming yourself when it doesn't work out the way you envisioned it in your head. You're only human, Ed. Let yourself feel the things that the rest of us mere mortals do and make the same mistakes."

"I know all this Rose," I argue back because really, I did not all of this. I had heard it not only from her and from Carlisle, but my own mother in her more lucid moments. I couldn't carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, but it was very different knowing something and actually getting your mind to realise it; a sentiment which Rosalie echoed on the other end of the line.

We were both silent for several moments before she asked about my Mom. "She's okay," I tell her. "Her doctors have switched her meds because they think that maybe part of the reason she stopped taking them was because they weren't doing exactly what they were supposed to in the first place."

"And you don't believe them?"

I shrugged even though I knew she couldn't see me. "I don't know Rose," I tell her honestly. "Maybe it does have something to do with it, but she's just done this so many times before that I don't know what to believe anymore. I don't think she's telling anyone the full story, her psychiatrist included."

Rosalie didn't say anything, but then again there was nothing to say after that. Instead she just allowed me to mull over my own thoughts before speaking once more to say goodbye. It was nice speaking to her because no one could do blunt honesty better than Rosalie Hale. She had done very well not to call me a spineless idiot just then; something she had done on another occasion. After a few more moments of thinking and trying to talk myself into behaving like a grown up for once in my life, I got up and walked back to the car, intending to go back to have at least one conversation with my Mom that didn't end in me walking out.

*

Carlisle wasn't there when I arrived; left thirty minutes before my arrival someone had told me. I was glad I didn't have to face him yet; I was carrying around enough guilt without having to feel guilty about our fight too. Visiting times were nearly finishing, but I had to speak to Mom before I left. I had to let her know that I was sorry and that I absolutely did not blame her for any of this because so far I had acted like a complete dick. I would be leaving later tonight and goodness knows when I would be coming back to visit again. I wanted to tell myself that I would be back within the next month, but I didn't know that I would be, that I would want to. That admission to myself was the worst part; what kind of son didn't want to visit their mother?

I walked into her room quietly, but she wasn't asleep. Instead, she was sat up in bed watching me walk into the room, as if she had known I would come back all along. She always had more faith in me than I deserved.

"Hey sweetheart," she greeted when I finally made my way fully inside and shut the door behind me.

I smiled at her and sat down at her bedside. "I'm so sorry Mom," I say, my voice catching in my throat at the various different things I was apologising for. The words weren't enough to cover the multitude of things I needed them to. "I'm sorry for behaving like a child all the time. I'm sorry for not coming by to visit more often. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you're here instead of with Carlisle and I...I'm just so, so sorry."

I was sobbing by the end of it and I knew it wasn't fair. Here I was asking my mother to make me feel better about life when really it should be the other way around. I was selfish and I hated myself, but I couldn't stop it. I wanted her to tell me it was going to all be okay, that we would get back the years that had been taken from all of us, the lives that we were supposed to have had. I wanted to still be young enough to believe her when she stroked my hair back and told me that everything would turn out fine.

She smiled down at me, her eyes shining with kindness and love. "You have nothing to be sorry for Edward," she told me, her voice firm. "You've done everything you could possibly do for me, given up more than I should have let you. You're an amazing young man Edward Cullen and it's about time you started really believing that. What is happening to me, what has happened to me is not your fault Edward. It never was. I don't know why you find that so hard to believe."

I didn't either, but I said nothing, instead just grasping her hand in mine, tears still silently rolling down my cheeks. It's not often grown men cry and it certainly wasn't often I did unless it was called for by a script, but the whole situation with my Mom always kind of did it. It was so unfair that she was here, that she had this illness that had taken over her entirely because before all of this had happened, my Mom really did love life. We talked for a little while longer, me begging the nurses to just let me have a few more minutes alone with her when they told me that visiting hours had finished. I didn't want to leave yet. I had just gotten to a point in this visit of being able to see her and talk to her without being angry at everything and I didn't want to leave. I didn't know if I would be able to be like this when I came back to see her. I said goodbye and treasured the memory of my mother smiling warmly at me, telling me to stay safe as I shut the door to her room behind me.

Carlisle was in the hotel room packing when I got in. Our flight was due to take off in two hours and it would take us at least 45 minutes to get to the airport. He didn't acknowledge me when I came in, choosing instead to just keep folding his clothes and putting them into his bag. Obviously he was pissed at me and Carlisle was a little passive aggressive so I would have to broach the subject of our fight myself if I wanted to finally clear the air. I didn't exactly want to spend the next few hours sitting next to him when all I would get were one word answers and loaded sighs.

"Look, Carlisle, before you stew about this for days on end, I just want to say I'm sorry about the fight," I say as I sit on his bed where he's packing his bag so he can't ignore me.

He freezes for a moment and looks at me before carrying right on. "I'm not mad at you about the fight Edward," Carlisle tells me, his voice hard and unforgiving. "I'm not even mad at you for taking the damn car for hours on end and then ignoring all my calls when I just wanted to know where the hell you were." Well, yes he didn't sound pissed off at me whatsoever.

"Then why are you pissed?"

He stopped shoving shirts into the bag and looked up at me, his face a picture of exasperation. "I'm pissed because you can't seem to take your head out of your ass when it comes to Mom."

My mouth dropped open in shock because Carlisle had never really phrased it that way before. He'd never been so blunt about his feelings in regards to how I handled the situation with our mother. I couldn't say I was surprised at what he said; it was completely true after all.

"You're so wrapped up in yourself and how bad you feel that you can't see straight," he continues, letting the floodgates open fully. Obviously years of holding back were now culminating in this little rant. "I don't know why you always feel responsible for everything Edward. Do you honestly hold yourself in such high regard?"

"What?!"

"Do you think so highly of yourself that you think you influence everything around you? I hate to break it to you Ed, but the world doesn't revolve around you!" His voice had risen and his face was furious.

"I never said it fucking did Carlisle," I defended myself because I may be many shitty things, but I didn't think that everything was about me, not by a long shot.

"Really? Because you act like it does. Do you really think that every little thing you do will have some humungous affect on how everyone else lives their lives?" He carried on without reacting to my comment.

"Of course not!" I shout back. I didn't want this to turn violent, but if he didn't stop spouting shit from his mouth, I was going to lose control of my fist and it would no doubt end up in my older brother's face.

"Then why the hell do you think that everything is your fault?" he asked, his voice lowering, but still laced with a strong undercurrent of frustration. "Why do you feel guilty for everything that's happen to Mom, to us?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but nothing came out. I didn't know what to say. Was Carlisle right after all? I did blame myself for a lot of the things that had happened within the past few years regarding our mother and the guilt about the fact that she was in a home thousands of miles away from either myself or Carlisle ate away at me day by day. Did that mean I thought I had the power and the right to control everything? Was I the egotistical asshole that Carlisle was accusing me of being? I didn't know what to think anymore. These past three days had completely wiped me out and my mind started to actually ache. Carlisle took my silence as an admission of defeat and he went back to packing in silence. I had nothing left to say and a million things to think about, so I mirrored his actions and started to put my clothes in my bag quietly.

*

I woke up in my own bed on Friday morning wondering why the hell I felt like absolute shit. For a fraction of a second I wondered how Rosalie had persuaded me to get drunk the day before possibly the biggest audition of my entire life, but then I remembered where I had been for the past few days and what I had been doing and suddenly I felt a thousand times worse. Carlisle and I had come to a silent understanding while flying across the country, that we wouldn't mention the arguments that we had been having the past few days. We agreed, without saying anything, that we would just pretend it never happened and when we got to LAX, we were talking again, though it was more than a little strained.

I got home to a quiet and empty apartment, which I was glad about because as much as I loved my best friend and would no doubt tell her everything that happened with Carlisle anyway, I wasn't up for having that conversation at 2 in the morning after an extremely tiring few days. Instead, I had collapsed onto my bed without unpacking and without even taking my clothes of, which was probably just another reason why I woke up feeling like utter shit.

I rolled over to see that it was 10 in the morning and I had an hour to get my ass out of bed and into the audition building. I hadn't even looked at the script since I got the call about my Mom on Monday night and right in that moment, I was feeling more than a little nervous about it. The events of the past few days had driven all the anxiety and the insecurity about the audition and the role itself right out of my head. Now, however, it was staring me in the face and even though I wasn't nearly as absorbed in this morning's events as I would have been prior to Monday, I was still feeling a little nervous. I quickly jumped into the shower to wash off the dirt that seems to gather in every crease of your skin when you've been travelling for any length of time. I was changed and wolfing down breakfast within thirty minutes of getting up, reading Rosalie's good luck note stuck to the refrigerator before rushing out of the apartment to drive the ten minutes it would take to get to the building.

I arrived with fifteen minutes to spare and was escorted into a small room to wait for Sue by her assistant. I kind of knew what to expect from today because they had given me instructions over the phone and emailed me an itinerary of what they wanted me to do. I only hoped to god that I remembered all my lines and my cues. I wasn't entirely confident that I would remember them, but I tried to comfort myself in the knowledge that I knew the poem inside out and therefore, in theory, I would be able to ad-lib something comprehensive if the worst happened and I totally blanked in a scene. I didn't even let it cross my mind that I wouldn't be able to come up with anything intelligent in the moment because I would probably find myself half way back to my apartment if I let the thought enter my mind.

Sue came in only five minutes later, telling me that she was glad I could make it even with all the personal problems that I was having. I had phoned Emily on Monday just before Carlisle and I boarded the plane to go to the east coast. I hadn't even thought about the audition and if it hadn't been for Rosalie reminding me then I would have probably lost the chance at even getting the job simply because I wouldn't have turned up on Thursday and they would have just written me off as another waste of time actor. I ended up having to divulge quite a bit of information about why I was suddenly going to be across the country when I should have been reading for this part, but it got them to give me an extra day without kicking me off the short list. Of course, Sue didn't know the full extent of my mother's conditions – only that she had been taken into hospital suddenly and was kind of fighting for her life. She had been extremely sympathetic about the whole thing, telling me that she understood my priorities and that it wouldn't affect my chances at all of getting the part. I was thankful that she allowed me the extra day and extremely grateful that she hadn't asked any more questions about my mother's illness.

"We're going to start in about fifteen minutes Edward," she informed me. "I'll walk you to the room that we're going to be using for the majority of the day and introduce you to the rest of the case just before we start. Is that okay?"

"Sure," I agreed, following her out of the room and through several corridors that I had been down only once before when I had my first audition here. The room that she eventually led me to, however, was completely unfamiliar and very different to the small, dark room that I had auditioned in before.

When we walked in the room quietened noticeably, but didn't go completely silent, which I was damn glad about. I looked around and immediately caught Bella's eyes, which earned me a friendly smile from the woman herself. I smiled back and just about stopped myself from giving her a small wave. Instead, I ran a hand through my hair, as if that was the only reason I had lifted it from my side in the first place. Sue introduced me to a couple of the producers of the movie, which surprised me a little because I didn't think they would actually be here. I had thought that they would view the footage that was being shot in these sessions at a later date and make their decisions based on those. I guess everyone involved in the film really cared about how it was going to turn out if the producers were actually here.

Sue then led me to the small circle of people that included Bella, introducing them as the people who had been cast to play several of the big roles within the film. I had only seen one other person within the group before, aside from Bella, and that had been the petite girl with short spiky black hair that seemed a little at odds with her completely feminine demeanour; I think her name was Alice. She smiled at me brightly when Sue gave my name to everyone in the group and gave me theirs back in turn.

"...and of course you've already met Bella," Sue finished, indicating the place where Bella was standing. I grinned at Bella, finding comfort in the fact that by now she was actually a familiar face, especially compared to everyone else in the room. Sue left pretty much as soon as she knew I had everyone's name and they had mine, saying something about needing to set the camera up for filming the scene.

Everyone else in the group carried on talking to each other when Sue left, but before I could try and join in their conversation, Bella stepped closer to me with a grin much like the one I had given her not a minute earlier.

"Hey," she greeted softly. "How are you?"

"A little nervous to be perfectly honest," I confess, chuckling at my own admission.

She laughed with me. "That's understandable I guess. I mean you sucked in your last audition. I don't know how on earth you convinced Sue to give you another shot."

If I hadn't been wondering exactly the same thing myself in that very moment, I wouldn't have missed the teasing tone that Bella used. As it was however, I was feeling a little inadequate and when she voiced my exact thoughts my mouth actually dropped open and my face flamed in indignation and embarrassment before I caught the twinkle in her eyes and the smile on her lips. I shook my head at my own stupidity, Bella's laughter punctuating my feelings of ridicule.

"It's not nice to pick on the new boy Bella," Alice reprimanded, her voice matching her appearance exactly; light and feminine.

"Yeah, Bella you're not being nice," I teased back. I smiled at Alice gratefully, but noticed the way that when her eyes moved over to look at Bella, there was definitely something in them beyond what her words were saying. I think Bella may have sensed something too because her brows furrowed for a fraction of a second before she turned back to me, face completely clear.

"Oh please stalker boy," she scoffed. "You should be thanking me. If I had filed that restraining order you wouldn't be able to be within 500 metres of me, meaning no audition."

I laughed loudly at this; louder than I probably should have because I was also still a little uncomfortable with how all my previous conversations with her had started off with me seeming like I was following her every move. It was a good thing she could joke about it though because it meant that she didn't actually believe that I was stalking her. Alice looked from me to Bella, her face the picture of confusion. She was about to ask exactly what she was missing when Sue called everyone in the room to attention. The show was about to start and I felt my mouth go dry as the lights dimmed and the room hushed in anticipation. Oh holy shit!

Luckily the first scene that Sue wanted to do was the one that I had initially used to audition in the first place, which made the whole being nervous thing much easier. It kind of gave me a confidence boost to be doing this scene first because they had obviously been impressed enough the first time I did it to offer me this second shot. On the flip side, I could screw it up so badly that they realise their mistake and tell me to get the hell out of this building without even waiting to finish the day. All of this went through my head as I started playing the same melody that I had the first time and I was amazed that I didn't falter at all. Obviously years of piano lessons were now paying off.

When it came to the last kiss between the two of them in the scene, I decided to change it from the way it was written and the way that I had first done it. Instead of kissing her on the lips like the script instructed, I brought my head up so that my lips were now out of her reach and placed them on her forehead. I don't think it was a conscious decision on my part to change the kiss like that, but it's what felt right in the moment. This man was completely in love with this woman, he adored and cherished her and in the moment, I felt as if it was a better expression of his complete reverence for her to kiss her on the forehead rather than once again on the mouth. This scene wasn't really about the passion that they had, but rather the desperation that they felt both when they were apart and when they were together. At least that's how it played out to me. It seemed as if Bella also felt this because as I placed my lips on her forehead, she placed hers softly on the base of my neck. The gesture was intimate and much more in keeping with the depth of these two characters' emotions in regards to each other; they were so much more than lovers.

When Sue called cut, her voice rang throughout the large hall, which was extremely silent; I couldn't even hear people breathing. The lights came up and I looked over to where everyone else in the cast was standing just in time to see Alice furrow her brows and Jessica wipe her eyes. I didn't know what to make of Alice's expression, but I just hoped that Jessica's tears meant that she was affected by the emotions rather than my acting was _that_ terrible. I turned and looked to Sue's direction to see what she wanted us to do next and in doing so, I caught Bella's eyes which were still bright from the unshed tears needed for the scene. She smiled at me as our gazes connected and reached up to my left side, obviously wanting to whisper in my ear, something she didn't want the microphones to pick up. I bent down to try and make it easier for her. After all, I was probably nearly a foot taller than she was.

"You were amazing just then," she said quietly. "No jokes, no sarcasm. You just blew that scene away."

I think my eyes actually popped out of their sockets as she said these words in my ear and I felt myself redden at her compliments. I was never that great at receiving praise for my work and I was very surprised at the sheer conviction in her voice. She really was being honest and I was glad that she thought so highly of my performance because honestly, she intimidated me a little bit. Bella may have been young, but she handled herself in scenes like she'd been doing it her whole life, which she kind of had; the majority of it at least. She was an incredible actress and I really could only hope not to look like too much of an amateur when I was acting opposite her.

"I'm just trying to keep up with you," I tell her honestly and this time it was her turn to blush a little. She chuckled and walked away to stand with the rest of the cast, me following behind her with a smile that I'm sure stretched from one side of my face to the other.

* * *

**AN: Thanks for the reviews, I really enjoy reading what people are thinking of the story and the suggestions. I also enjoy the questions because they make me realise things I need to explain, or things that I need to clarify, so if you want to ask anything, feel free.**


	6. Chapter 6 Round Two

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 6 EPOV**

The next scene that Sue wanted to film me in involved me working with people in the cast other than Bella, which I was a little apprehensive about. The past two times I had read for this film had been with Bella and some irrationally superstitious part of me believed that it was only her acting that made mine anywhere near passable. The scene was supposed to be myself and two of my band mates discussing where we were going to tour and what songs we were going to include in our new record, before ending up having an impromptu jamming session on the streets outside of the recording studio. The scene took place about a month before the one that I had just done with Bella and the tour that was being planned was the one in which Rob actually did announce his departure from the band that he had fronted for the past 6 years of his life. The songs that we were debating in the studio were those that would be included in the band's final album together and Rob's penultimate record ever; he had only ever released one solo record two years after he left the group.

Tyler was playing the base guitarist of the band and Alice, the drummer. The three members had been together since they were in high school were extremely good friends. In fact, Rob and Alice's character, Ashley, were cousins and it had often been postulated that it was she who released the poem in the first place. The scene, as it turned out, was pretty fun to do because of the fact that besides a line of dialogue or two every so often, all we were doing was playing good music. I was extremely nervous about playing and singing in front of everyone, but it kind of helped that it wasn't my own music that I was playing and in reality, I was trying to change my voice to emulate Robert's. I didn't know whether or not the singing within the film would actually be that of the original artist, or whoever was chosen to play him and I didn't know which one I would prefer should I be the one chosen. Alice and Tyler, I found out, were also amazing actors and brilliant musicians, which made me feel a little intimidated again by them. It seemed as if that was a feeling I was going to definitely have to get used to being around these people. Even though the majority of the cast were unknowns, it seemed as if Sue Clearwater really had an eye for picking out genuine talent. Whether or not I would pass her last test was another matter entirely.

The next scene was the very first meeting between Kristen and Robert. It had taken place in Paris around two years before the period of the main body of the film, during the band's first and only world tour. I viewed the scene a little differently to how I did when I first read it, now that I knew the truth behind the meeting and I just hoped that it didn't affect how I played the part too much. The meeting was portrayed pretty much as a cliché romantic movie encounter between the two leads. Their eyes met across a crowded room and time stopped and the world ceased to spin on its axis. It was a nice scene, certainly, but it did kind of lack the realism and depth that the rest of the script had.

"You ready?" Bella asked me, as the crew around us rearranged some chairs and tables to resemble a rather intimate concert venue.

"I hope so," I laugh. "Do you want to stick a blunt spoon in your eyeballs yet?"

"I passed that point two weeks ago," she confesses, her tone completely serious. "I'm kind of the wanting to gnaw my arm off stage.

"Aren't I glad I got the last spot of the process?" Bella laughed heartily at my sarcasm and although it wasn't the first time that I noticed how unusual and attractive her throaty laughter was, it was the first time that I was kind of knocked back by it. I shook my head to clear it of the strange thoughts I was having; obviously the stress of the week and the anxiety about this day were getting to me and messing with my thought processes.

"Take your marks everyone!" Sue instructed from the other side of the room. I stepped up onto the make-shift stage and picked up the acoustic guitar that lay beside the centre microphone. I watched as Bella walked a little to the left where two chairs were set up a little away from each other to represent the doorway. "Lights down. Music. Action"

_He was listening to the drum solo that Ashley was banging out, still amazed after all this time that such a little thing could make so much noise and let out so much anger. She grinned up at him and winked as she finished off the last notes, signalling the end of her solo, the end of the song and the end of the set. He turned around to announce to the crowd that the band would be taking a fifteen minute break and to thank them all for being enthusiastic participants, but just as he was about to open his mouth he was stopped from getting the words out by a pair of bright green eyes on the other side of the room. For a moment all he could focus on were the colour of those eyes, so much so that every word he had ever known literally flew from his mind. It took a few seconds and the eyes to run away from his direction before he remembered what he was supposed to be doing and carried it out. _

_He shook his head clear as the crowd in front of him cheered after his little speech and shifted a little bit so that they could start heading to the bar. He looked out over their heads to try and see if he could see those startling green eyes once more, but nothing stood out in the sea of people. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion – surely he couldn't have imagined those eyes?_

"_Come on Rob," Ashley prompted, pushing him a little so that he would make his way off stage. "I could murder a bloody drink right now."_

"_Does that mean it's your round Ash?" Dan asked jokingly, as he always had when they were still struggling to make ends meet with this whole music thing._

"_Dream on!" Ashley scoffed. "What happened to the good old days when men offered to pay for everything anyway?"_

"_Went away with equal rights and equal pay my dear," Robert joined in with his band mates' quips as they walked backstage of the small venue. It was amazing doing little gigs like this one in the midst of a huge world tour because it really reminded them of how they started out and why they did this in the first place. The crowd out front were some of their more dedicated fans – this small gig was very hush-hush and only certain people had any clue that it was happening in the first place. The press hadn't even gotten hold of this story until ten minutes after the band appeared on stage – an extremely impressive feat considering how the media was in modern society._

_The only downside to these gigs now that they were relatively famous was that they couldn't just finish a set and go to the bar out front for drinks. It would cause all sorts of havoc and the record company would have had a fit. Something to do with 'safety of the talent'. Instead, they were going to a small room in the back of the club that must have been someone's office, or the staff room to get a few drinks. No fans were allowed back here, but the band had told everyone that they would be around for a while after the entire gig was done to answer questions, take photos and give autographs. They hoped that everyone would cooperate because meeting and greeting 200 people in the space of maybe an hour was going to be a mammoth task, but they really did want to be able to talk with everyone. Every single one of them knew what it was like to idolise a band or a person and be extremely disappointed when you wait hours just for a 30 second glimpse of them surrounded by 3 burly bodyguards. They had spent their entire careers trying to give their fans as much of themselves as they could without losing their privacy or their sanity and so far it had worked pretty well._

_They all sank into the sofas that had been put their especially for the three of them tonight, a bottle of beer in each of their hands. Ashley and Dan were talking about the possibility of having a small after party in their hotel suite, but Rob wasn't listening. Instead, he was running over the rest of the songs that they had agreed to play tonight, wondering whether or not they had made the right choice to play a new song at the very end of the night. The idea was that they would play the song and then meet the fans so they could tell the band firsthand what they really thought about the new material. Rob, however, was very nervous about this because this was the very first song that he had written by himself, without any input from the other two. Not only that, but the song was such a departure from the band's normal musical style and he was slightly afraid he was going to piss a lot of fans of and make the entire band look like idiots. _

_He was just going to bring up possibly changing the song choice when he heard a giggling from the other side of the door. Ashley and Dan stopped talking to each other and looked over at him, their expressions mirroring what he thought his own must have been – confusion._

"_Where the hell did he say the toilets were again?" a female voice hissed from the other side of the door._

"_A right and then a left and then the third door on the left," another said patiently. "I don't know why you couldn't have just used the toilets in the main bar like everyone else Kris."_

"_Because Arianna and all her friends are having a damn meeting in there it seems," the first voice explained. "Ah...this must be it."_

_The three friends watched as the door to their little supposedly private room opened and in walked two girls who looked to be in their late teens, who had their heads turned towards each other in conversation and didn't notice that the room they had just entered was not actually a bathroom of any kind. It was when the taller of the two girls with slightly shorter hair, stopped that the three band members knew that she, at least, was aware of the fact that they were now being watched. Her companion stopped just moments after the first, her head still turned to her companion, but when the first girl jerked her head in the direction of where the three band mates sat watching the two girls, the second girl turned her head slowly and suddenly Rob found himself staring into the same green eyes that had chased all coherent thought from his head not five minutes ago. _

"_Oh shit!" the girl with the glorious green eyes exclaimed, her face flushing as her eyes scanned all three faces of the people who had been up on stage only minutes before. Her gaze landed on the lead singer of the band and when she connected with his blue eyes, she was pretty sure she actually felt her breath catch._

"_Hello!" Ashley greeted, eyes shining with amusement. "I presume you two are lost?" She had noticed the way the girl with the dark blond hair still had not stopped looking at Rob and Rob himself didn't seem to be able to look away._

"_Yeah, very it seems," the first girl answered. "Sorry, we didn't mean to barge in here, honestly."_

"_We heard," Dan laughed. "I think the toilets are actually left then right, not right then left."_

"_You guys must think we're stalking you or something," the girl said, her face full of apology. "We're really not, honestly."_

_Ashley joined in Dan's laughter. "Don't worry about it," she told the girl kindly. "Just make sure that everyone else knows the right directions to the facilities."_

_Whilst the three of them were talking, Robert and the girl still could not find the will or the strength to look away from each other. It was as if they were connected by an invisible piece of string that held their heads in just that one position. She had taken two steps towards him, though she hadn't even been conscious of making the decision to do so and he, in turn had almost gotten out of the chair that he had been occupying. The tension between them was palpable and each one felt as if the other was the only other person in the room, certainly the only one that mattered anyway. They hadn't heard a word anyone else was saying since they had locked eyes and to be perfectly honest, neither of them cared to hear. They were perfectly content to just stand and stare, willing the other one to move just that bit closer._

"_ROB!" Ashley yelled rather loudly, shoving him a little so he stumbled over the seat that he had been occupying. This broke him out of the trance that he hadn't even really been aware he was in and he blinked a couple of times so that the burning green eyes weren't the only things he could see._

"_Shit Ash, what the hell was that for? I almost fell over!" Robert grumbled, face still turned to the girl with the hypnotising eyes. She was absolutely breath-taking and he couldn't seem to stop looking at her. The only good thing about it was that she couldn't seem to stop looking at him either. He noticed the way her eyes moved around his face and usually, he would have felt incredibly annoyed and self-conscious about the whole thing, but right now he was just thankful that she was occupied so that he could study her face too, without seeming completely inappropriate._

"_Just to tell you to close your mouth idiot," Ash said, her voice full of mirth. "You're making a pool of drool all over the chair."_

_He should have been embarrassed when his supposed friend pointed out just how stupid he had been acting since the green-eyed girl came into the room, but he was distracted by the way the girl in question had bitten her lip. _

_Ashley rolled her eyes and got up to walk in between Robert and the girl, Kristen in an attempt to break whatever staring contest they had going on. It had been amusing to watch the both of them at first, but now it was just a little annoying and was making everyone else in the room slightly uncomfortable. She had never seen Rob act like this about a girl, let alone someone he had literally just set eyes upon, and she had known the guy her entire life. When she got in between them, she had to hold back a chuckle as she saw the way Rob's brows furrowed and the way his eyes darkened with annoyance. He opened his mouth to say something to her, but she held up a hand to stop him._

"_Rob, this," she stepped to the side and indicated the girl that she had momentarily blocked from his line of sight, "is Kristen." Robert smiled at the girl when Ashley said her name and took a step forward._

_Ashley turned to the girl who had rendered her friend absolutely incapable of behaving like a normal person. "Kristen, this idiot is Robert."_

_The girl stepped forward and held out her hand for Rob to take, her eyes never leaving his. "Nice to meet you," she said softly, her voice confident. _

_Rob took two large steps forward himself to meet her so that he was only inches from her. Ashley had been completely forgotten by the two of them, something she would have found extremely rude, had she not found the whole thing interesting. "Nice to meet you too," Rob said back, his voice a little rougher and lower than it normally was. He stuck his own hand out to shake hers and when their hands met, there was no electric current from the ends of their fingertips. Instead, each one visibly sagged at the contact; it felt like coming home._

"CUT!" Sue yelled once more, knocking me out of the reverie that I had been in as the character. I pulled my hand from Bella's in order to run it through my hair, noticing that as soon as her small hand slipped from mine, the air surrounding it seemed just a little colder.

People started moving around again in order to set up for the next scene and I followed as Bella moved to the side so that we wouldn't get in the way of the crew members. Alice was on the other side of me, chatting animatedly to Jessica, who was playing Kate, the girl that had replaced Esme in the story. Tyler was talking to Bella in front of me, but I wasn't exactly paying attention to their conversation. In all honesty, I felt a little uncomfortable around the cast; a little like I didn't exactly belong there. It had nothing to do with the people at all. They had been nothing but nice and accommodating since I first stepped foot in the room with Sue, but it was just that they had built up such a rapport with each other that I was not a part of yet, if ever; I wondered if I would still feel like this should I be given the role. This was the first film I had ever been part of where the rest of the cast had already been decided and then present for the remainder of the audition period. I guess it was in an effort to build a team dynamic that would transfer onto the screen, but it was hard being the odd one out in such a group of people. I had never really fit in with the crowd anyway and normally I liked that about myself, but when everyone was laughing and joking around me as if they had been friends for years and I was nervous as hell about not fitting in enough to get the part, it wasn't exactly my best characteristic.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Angela asked me as took the free seat next to her.

"Huh?" I replied before realising what she'd said. "Oh, it was nothing that would be worth a penny."

She smiled at that. "Not even a penny huh? I guess it's lucky you have a pretty face then."

"That's what I tell myself every day," I quip back, my face completely serious. She laughs louder at this and I smile back. Okay, so maybe it would be a little easier with people like Angela, to become part of this small band of people.

"You joining us for lunch?" she invited. It was now twelve thirty and we had an hour break before we had to come back to read four scenes from the rest of the film this afternoon.

I nodded my head in answer. "Sure. Where do you guys usually eat?"

"I'll take you there now," she offered, getting up from the chair. I noticed that everyone else was walking off in different directions.

"I just have to meet someone outside," I tell her. Rosalie needed the car for the afternoon and I had promised to give her the key in my lunch hour, after she finished work. Angela agreed to go with me and wait to bring me over to the separate building that the cast and crew often had lunch in. I found it extremely easy to talk to Angela, she was unassuming and genuinely interested in what people had to say – something even I myself found hard to be sometimes.

Rosalie was already there, waiting for me impatiently by the car. Angela hung back as I walked over to her, probably because Rosalie's expression was less than friendly. Obviously she was pissed, but I doubted that it was just because I was a couple of minutes late meeting her to give her the keys to _my_ car. I raised an eyebrow at her in question, but she just shook her head and held out her hand. She didn't want to talk about it. Tough. I shook my own head and held the car keys firmly. This kind of silent battle of wills was a fairly frequent occurrence between Rose and me. She was stubborn as hell, but so was I and the match was fairly even.

Finally, after a few minutes of furious glaring from her side, she stamped her heel clad foot and groaned in utter frustration at having lost. "Just fucking give me the keys already you twat!" Rosalie got a million times more foul-mouthed and British when she was angry.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you that you'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar Rosalie?" I asked, rather amused by her impetuous display. The foot stamp was a classic Rosalie move that meant she wanted to crush my balls underneath her heels.

Rose ran a hand over her face and I noticed then that she didn't look like she normally did during one of our face-off's – all Amazonian woman-like. Instead, she looked tired and just plain annoyed. "Seriously Ed, I'm not in the mood right now."

I stepped closer to her and dropped the hand that had been holding the key in front of her face. "What's up?" the concern was evident in my voice, even though I'd lowered it in case someone could overhear us.

"I'll talk to you about it later," she said dismissively. "I just...I really need the car right now okay?" She was ending the conversation, but only for now. I knew she would tell me later, when she was ready. I nodded and handed her the key. She smiled up at me when she closed her hand around it and pulled it free of my grasp, but the smile didn't reach her eyes at all and she was honestly starting to worry me. I put an arm around her shoulder and hugged her close in a comforting manner because that was what I felt like she needed right then, though I had no idea why.

"Thanks," she whispered, hugging me back before letting go. She looked up into my face and rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about me," she instructed, correctly interpreting my look and actions. "Just go back and blow everyone away." She reached out for my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze before opening the car door and getting in. I watched for a little while as she drove off, hoping that she was being truthful and that she really was okay.

Angela was looking both concerned and curious, but the concern won out and I liked her a little more. "Is everything alright Edward?" she asked as we walked around the corner of the building and down a path I hadn't known existed.

"I think so," I replied. She nodded her head and started talking about the small building at the end of the path that housed the catering service everyone used when they were here, working. I was grateful that she didn't press on further because even though she seemed really nice, I didn't know her and I did not appreciate people being overly interested in my business.

A good proportion of the crew and most of the cast were already seated by the time we entered the large room that looked kind of like a school canteen, complete with its own group divisions. The main cast were sat together on a circular table furthest away from the door and it was to this table that Angela and I started walking. Everyone was talking in small groups at the table as they ate their lunch; everyone except Bella. She was conspicuously absent from the table and as I looked around the room, I noticed that she was actually not inside of it at all. I shrugged and made my way to the counter where all the food was being served; maybe she had just gone out for lunch like the two times I had seen her outside of this place. I was glad that Angela had taken it upon herself to try and include me into the group because Bella was actually the only person I felt comfortable talking to and she obviously wasn't here. Alice was nice enough and Rosalie had mentioned that she was the girl Jasper was dating at the moment, but I got the feeling that she didn't entirely like me and she was more than a little reluctant to have me around. Maybe I was being overly critical, or sensitive, or whatever else Rosalie had accused me of being several times before, but I honestly felt as if Alice was, at best, wary of me.

Angela introduced me to a dark-haired guy called Ben that she had been talking to whilst I was getting my food. I recognised him a little and when I commented on this, he laughed and said he'd been in a commercial for toothpaste when he was about 13, which was what everyone recognised him from. I shook my head. "No, I think I saw you in a film. Do you speak French by any chance?"

Ben was shocked at my question. "Yeah," he answered. "Half of my family is French," he informed me. "It would be kind of hard not to."

"I think I saw a French film you were in about five years back," I tell him. "One about Voltaire, I think."

His mouth dropped open in surprise and Angela was a little shocked too. "How do you know about that film?"

"I was in France about five years ago and they were showing it at the hostel I stayed at." I explained. "You were great by the way."

He shrugged. "It was a small part so I would have to have been trying really hard to fuck it up right?"

We all laughed at this and fell into a very easy conversation about France and its many delights. It turned out that Ben had actually grown up in a small town near Bordeaux and hadn't moved to America till he was 11. He went to France as often as possible, given his busy schedule, so that he could spend time with the family he still had back there. At one point in the conversation, when Angela had expressed a wish to see more of the wine lands, he had promised to take her one day and she blushed furiously and looked down. It seemed as if something was going on with the two of them, but it wasn't any of my business even if there was, so I chose to speak as if nothing strange had happened or been said at all. Our conversation then moved on to the topic of literature. It turned out that both Angela and Ben had been aware of the poem before they signed to do the project. They had both read it and loved it, though Angela did comment that it was a little too dark for her at points and she was slightly disturbed by the fact that it seemed as if Rob had actually _hated_ the subject of the piece at various stages.

"They do say there's a fine line between love and hate though," a very familiar voice behind me spoke up. I turned to see Bella taking the empty seat to my right and smiling at everyone on the table as she joined us.

Angela shook her head in disagreement. "Well they're completely wrong. You can't hate someone you love. It's just physically impossible."

"How so?" I ask, turning away from Bella to address my newest sort-of-friend.

"Well when you love someone then you want what's best for them all the time. You want them to be happy and you'll most likely do anything you can to make them so. When you hate someone those feelings aren't there. You don't care if they're miserable. In fact, surely you would want them to be that way, to suffer and feel pain because you don't hate someone without a reason and that reason is probably that they've wronged you."

Ben was nodding throughout the entire speech. "I agree with Angela," he voiced. Well, of course he would. "The two emotions are on the completely opposite sides of the emotional spectrum."

I shook my head in disagreement. "But they are both about passion," I argue. "You need passion and drive to actively hate someone, just like you need passion and drive to actively love someone. It's two sides of the same coin, I think."

"How can you possibly be in love with someone and hate them at the same time?" Jessica had joined the conversation now, obviously siding with Angela and Ben.

"It's about the situation," Bella explained. "I mean look at _Wuthering Heights_, which is regarded by many people as a wonderfully tragic tale of love. Heathcliffe didn't just love Cathy, he hated her with equal passion. I would say he despised her at points, maybe all the time and she hated him too."

"But Cathy was never in love with him," Alice argued. "Cathy was too selfish a creature to ever have really loved him, or she would never have married the other guy."

The conversation continued in this vein for several minutes, until everyone started talking over each other and Angela had to call a halt to all discussion for the sake of everyone else in the room. We laughed at her comment and went back to talking in the small groups that we had been in before. I was feeling far more comfortable now than I had been thirty minutes ago. It was kind of nice to know that Bella was on my side about something, even if it was only a small discussion about the themes of the film.

"I wouldn't have figured you for a _'Wuthering Heights fan,"_ I say to her, pushing my plate of food towards her. She had been trying to sneak a fry away from my plate, but she didn't have the stealth to do so without me noticing.

"I'm not," she confesses, taking a fry and smiling sheepishly at me. "In fact, I can't stand the book. I hate both of the main characters and I think the writing is laboured and overly-dramatic."

I laughed. "Tell me how you really feel about it, why don't you?"

She joined in my mirth. "Sorry, it's just that I had to study the text last year for school and I nearly tore my hair out after the first few chapters."

"I know exactly what you mean," I agreed, putting some of my own food into my mouth. "So, where were you before?"

Bella shrugged. "Nowhere exciting, just wanted to take a little walk. Get a bit of fresh air."

"So you walked all the way out of the city and back in less than twenty minutes," I joked. "That's kind of impressive Miss Swan."

"I have many talents, Mr. Cullen," she quips back, winking at me and laughing loudly.

I thought that there may have been something more to where she was than what she was actually telling me, but before I asked any more questions about it, I reminded myself that Bella and I weren't exactly friends. She didn't have to tell me what she was doing and where she had gone because it wasn't any of my business. Sure, sometimes I felt as if I'd known her for longer than I actually had, but that didn't mean I had the right to imply she was lying, or the right to demand that she tell me everything about her life. We moved on to talking about the rest of the afternoon scenes and I found out that we shared the same favourite scene in the movie – the one where Kristen leaves Rob to marry the guy that her parents had always planned for her to marry. It was without a doubt a huge turning point in the entire script. After that scene, everything in the film gets much darker, much more in keeping with the tone of the poem. Robert becomes infinitely more brooding, more closed off from the world around him. He had gone from being a tortured artist, to merely being tortured and, as an actor, it was a very exciting challenge to portray the change in him.

Throughout the remainder of lunch, I talked to more of the cast members and found myself to like the majority of them. Mike was slightly a little _too enthusiastic_about every single thing in a way that reminded me a bit of a puppy, but he was an okay guy in small doses. Jessica was pretty much the same – tolerable for short amounts of time. She was just like every other actress I had met in my time in Hollywood – more in it for the fame than the actual craft. The one thing different about her was that even though she did care more about being famous, she still worked on her craft and cared about trying to be better. Tyler was obviously the clown of the group, constantly making jokes out of every situation and comment, so much so that after a while people just began to ignore him. The only person who I couldn't really read or form an opinion on was Alice. The day of my first audition, I had met her and thought that she was nice enough; bright, friendly, a little flirty and seeming to always be on the verge of bouncing off the walls. I knew that Jasper had been on a couple of dates with her and seemed to be rather taken with Miss Brandon, but there was something about her that I just couldn't get a read on. She was friendly enough to me, on the outside, but there were times when I caught her looking at me as if she was actually studying me. I felt as if Alice were judging me, on a much deeper level than the usual judgements we all make when we first meet someone, and it made me feel uncomfortable. I was already under enough scrutiny from Sue and the rest of the casting people; I didn't need this woman to be watching my every movement like a hawk too.

*

**BPOV**

I was in desperate need of a cigarette. I was craving a nicotine fix more than I had ever remembered wanting it since I started smoking. By the time I got outside to my usual smoking spot, my right hand was actually shaking as I reached for my cigarettes. Maybe I really should have tried harder to quit if this was how bad I was going to be after two hours of not inhaling the carcinogenic chemicals that my white sticks were made of. As soon as I lit the end, I took a breath deep enough to fill a drowning man's lungs – if he were inclined to breathe in cigarette smoke instead of oxygen. My mind was whirring again, but this time I had no idea why. I wasn't pissed off like I had been the last few hundred times that this had happened. In fact, I was extremely happy with the way this morning had gone. Edward had been just as amazing as I remembered him being the first time around and I didn't, for a second, taking a risk to get him the part. The small change he had made in the first scene that we acted out was so heartfelt and genuine that the tears in my eyes at the end were pretty much my own instead of Kristen's. The kiss to my forehead was so gentle and loving that it was pure reflex on my part to kiss him back at the only place I could reach in that moment. I felt as if we had both transcended a level at the end of that scene and we were no longer actors merely playing the roles, but actually becoming the characters themselves and that is something all actors long to achieve in their scenes.

If it had ever crossed my mind that maybe the reason I found Edward so damn good was because we shared a special kind of chemistry when we acted together, the thought would have been told to exit stage right and to never come back as soon as I saw him in the scene with Tyler and Alice. He was a truly spectacular actor, delivering light-hearted just as easily as he did intense and he could play. His voice was amazing and I knew that he wasn't even really trying to sing. I was absolutely floored by him every single time he revealed a new talent because surely this man was too good to be true. If I believed in fate, I would have thought that Edward had been born to play this part. In the scene that we had just finished, I was fully in Kristen's mind-set and it was easy to act captivated by the man in front of me, because to be perfectly honest, I was a little captivated with this unknown actor. The funny thing about this whole situation was that Edward was completely unaware of his talent and the effect he had on those around him. I could tell Sue was on the verge of being in love with him and even though Jessica was almost at the point of mounting Mike, she was a little enamoured with Edward too.

So why I felt the need to light up right now was a mystery to me. All I knew was that as soon as Edward let go of my hand, it started to get twitchy and the only thing I knew would calm me down was a cigarette. That was why I was currently leaning on the back wall of the audition building, hidden by rather large garbage container enjoying breath after breath of nicotine and tar-laced air. My hand was once again calm and not feeling like it wanted to be free from the end of my arm. I knew that everyone would be heading for the smaller building on the west side of the lot for lunch, as we had done for several weeks now and I would catch up with them when I was done destroying my lungs. I was thinking about actually going out for lunch again today, but didn't really want to leave Edward alone with everyone. Sure, the cast was friendly enough, but I understood what it was like to be on the outside of an extremely close-knit group of people. I still felt like that when I was with everyone and I had been in on this project from the very beginning.

I was just lighting my second cigarette when I heard voices from around the corner of the building.

"Just fucking give me the keys already you twat!" a very agitated British voice rang out. It was familiar, but I couldn't really place it. I found it extremely hard to distinguish between one British accent and another unless I was hearing both at the same time.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you that you'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar Rosalie?" I definitely recognised the second voice – Edward. Of course the British voice would be Rosalie – that was why it sounded so familiar to me. Even though I had only met Rose very briefly twice before, it wasn't as if I knew anyone else British.

They continued arguing, her tone tense and defensive and his probing, worried. I couldn't hear a lot of it; it sounded as if they were on the far end of the parking lot and they weren't exactly screaming at each other. I wondered what it was they were fighting about. Edward and Rosalie had a very odd relationship from what I had been able to tell by the time I spent with them, both together and alone. I still couldn't figure out if they were friends or if they were romantically involved; nor could I work out why the hell I was interested enough to find out in the first place. I had never been one for gossip and I didn't really want to know anything about the private lives of my cast mates unless they wanted to specifically tell me, and even then I didn't really _want_ to know the majority of the time. After a few more moments distant mumbling, I heard a car door slam and an engine roar to life. Someone was driving away and I wondered for a brief moment whether Edward had driven off to have lunch with Rosalie somewhere else. I was a little annoyed at this simply because lunch would have been a very good time for him to get to know everyone in the cast and bond. Seth had fit in very well with the cast and it wouldn't have hurt Edward to make more of an effort. Obviously, whatever the relationship between Rosalie and Edward was, she was the dominant one.

I threw the cigarette stub on the floor and rubbed it out completely with my foot, deciding that I would take a little walk before going to the canteen building. There was no real reason for me to be there anymore. Edward had obviously decided that he didn't need to get to know everyone better since he had just left, so I no longer had to be there as his buffer. I had just started walking up the path to the gates of the parking lot when my phone vibrated in the back pocket of my jeans. I took it out and looked at the caller id. Jacob.

"Hey Jake," I greeted, the full blown smile on my face surely evident in the tone of my voice. I hadn't spoken to Jacob since I had called him on Wednesday afternoon. He had tried to call me last night, but I had been at dinner with my parents in the main house and left my cell in my apartment. When I returned his call later that night, it had gone straight to his answering machine.

"Hey babe," Jake replied, his voice full of warmth. "I missed you yesterday."

I sighed. "Me too." I really did miss Jake, much more this time than any other time we had been apart. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Alice had been telling me all the details of her budding relationship with Jasper.

"How was the other guy? Paul was it?"

I shrugged even though he couldn't see me. "He was okay," I informed him. "Nowhere near as good as either James or Seth, but definitely better than Embry."

"And the final guy?"

I thought for a moment about what I could say about Edward. I didn't want to gush about him as I had been doing in my head since the end of the first scene that we had acted out today. Jake wasn't used to me heaping praise upon anyone – hell, I wasn't even used to myself being so...amazed by someone, so I didn't want to sound weird. Besides, he wouldn't really understand what I meant about Edward's acting until he actually saw him.

"He's just as good as he was before," I finally answered. "Maybe a little better. How are things with you?" I was changing the subject because I didn't really feel all that comfortable talking to Jake about Edward; maybe it was because I was feeling guilty for lying by omission.

"It's been fantastic," he gushed, excitement bubbling over through the line. "I've been rehearsing the fight scenes today and I'm covered in bruises, but I wouldn't miss this experience for the world." Jake kind of sounded like a kid on Christmas day and I couldn't help the way my heart swelled at his tone. He had deserved something this big for so long now.

He talked a little bit more about what he'd been up to the previous day, which sounded boring by comparison. It had been their final costume fittings and Jake had been stuck in the costume department for hours, which was in the basement of some huge building, hence the reason his cell had gone straight to answer phone when I called. I was glad that my movie didn't have the lavish and complicated costumes his did because I really hated having costume fittings over and over again. We then talked about my night out with the rest of the cast, which he was still a little surprised about. I told him about Alice and Jasper, but apparently he was already in the know about the situation, more so than me in fact. I guess Alice and he were keeping in touch whilst he was away. I found this a little odd, though I didn't know exactly why because they had been friends for longer than Jake and I had been and certainly longer than Alice and I had been. I knew they were quite close and that they had the same group of friends, so it made sense that they would keep in touch with each other.

We said goodbye when I heard someone in the background call his name. His break had finished and although he sounded a little sad to be saying goodbye to me so soon, he couldn't even try to hide the excitement in his voice at the promise of more fake fighting. Men. I had found that I'd been walking closer to the smaller building we all used as a sort of canteen, which surprised me because I hadn't consciously made the decision to go there. As my stomach rumbled though, I thought maybe that my subconscious had been guiding me there from the moment I sated my need for nicotine.

As soon as I entered the room, I saw Edward's distinctly coloured hair without even having to look very hard. He kind of stood out like a beacon from the other side of the space. I made my way towards them, pausing every now and again to smile politely, or say hello to a member of the crew, or someone from the production staff. When I drew nearer, I noticed not only that Edward looked to be in deep conversation with both Ben and Angela, but also that Alice seemed to be keeping an eye on him even though she was talking to Jessica and Tyler. I had noticed throughout the day that Alice was not quite her usual self around Edward and I had to wonder why. Normally she would have been much warmer and more welcoming than she had been. Apart from a few jokes she exchanged with him, she had said nothing else directly to the guy. It was very odd behaviour from someone who had, just two days previously, welcomed another auditionee with open arms. Had Jasper told her something about him that would make her question his character? I didn't think this would have been the case because Alice herself had said that Jasper and Edward were friends. I continued to run questions through my mind until Alice looked up and saw me watching her watching Edward. She blinked in surprise, but it was replaced a fraction of a second later with a genuine smile. She mouthed a hello at me, which I returned, but neither of us said anything more because she turned away from me in order to reply to something Jessica had just been saying. It seemed as if Alice wasn't only acting strangely toward the new boy right now.

I was shaking my head free of the musings about Alice's behaviour when I heard Angela express that she found it a little disturbing that Robert had expressed a little hatred towards the object of his affection. This was completely in keeping with Angela's very character – she was such a gentle and genuinely nice person that she would never be able to conceive a moment in time when things weren't so black and white as good and evil; love and hate. I, on the other hand, didn't see the world in such a clear cut manner. Although I had never experienced the kind of emotions that the poem described, neither could I ever certainly say they did not, had not and would not exist.

"They do say that there's a fine line between love and hate though," I pointed out, taking a seat next to Edward, who currently had his back turned to me. He had been shaking his head throughout all of Angela's speech, so I was fairly certain that he would be of the same mind I was. He turned his head at the sound of my voice and I smiled in response.

Angela didn't back down, not that I ever expected her to. She may have been nice, gentle and genuine, but that didn't mean she would back down from an argument that she believed strongly in. "Well they're completely wrong," she countered. "You can't hate someone you love. It's just physically impossible."

I was surprised and my expression showed it. Physically impossible? That was an extremely strong statement.

"How so?" Edward challenged, his attention back on Angela.

"Well when you love someone then you want what's best for them all the time. You want them to be happy and you'll most likely do anything you can to make them so," Angela explained. "When you hate someone those feelings aren't there. You don't care if they're miserable. In fact, surely you would want them to be that way, to suffer and feel pain because you don't hate someone without a reason and that reason is probably that they've wronged you."

It was a good argument, but one which had many flaws. Angela was basing her entire theory on the assumption that someone you loved with everything that you had wouldn't and couldn't do something terrible to you. Again, although I hadn't had much personal experience in the matter, I had certainly heard of enough people who had gone through hell because of someone they loved. Before Edward or I could say anything to disagree with her statement, however, Ben backed her up which was no surprise to anyone at the table. Ben and Angela had sort of gravitated towards each other as soon as they met. It was understandable really; he was just as down to earth, kind and unassuming as she was.

"But they are both about passion," Edward argued in response to Ben's comment that the two emotions were on opposite ends of a whole spectrum of feelings. "You need passion and drive to actively hate someone, just like you need passion and drive to actively love someone. It's two sides of the same coin, I think."

I nodded my head along with his statement, but looking around the table we were definitely in the minority. Jessica even put in her two cents about the discussion although she had not been part of it in the beginning. Everyone's reactions surprised me considerably. How could people who grew up in the world we did, who lived their lives in the industry we did, have such a black and white view of the world? Were Edward and I just ridiculously jaded? Personally, I didn't think I was. I was just a realist. "It's about the situation," I started to explain my line of thought. "I mean look at _Wuthering Heights_, which is regarded by many people as a wonderfully tragic tale of love. Heathcliffe didn't just love Cathy, he hated her with equal passion. I would say he despised her at points, maybe all the time and she hated him too."

"But Cathy was never in love with him," Alice insisted. "Cathy was too selfish a creature to ever have really loved him, or she would never have married the other guy."

I shook my head to disagree because although Cathy was probably the single most selfish heroine to ever have been written in literature, I honestly believed she did love her childhood companion. However, I was saved having to argue this point when Mike piped up from the other side of the table. Apparently, he agreed with Edward and me, which was a little bit of a surprise to me, let alone to Jessica. The rumour mill had been buzzing about the two of them from day 1 and the majority of it seemed more or less true from what little I allowed Alice to tell me. That woman seemed to know everything that happened within our cast and crew, sometimes leaving me to wonder whether we were actually talking about the same people.

The conversation continued on a rather superficial level, with no one mentioning the darker arguments that they could possibly have used. However, the spirited discussion was causing the volume within the large room to rise and soon people around us were looking in our direction, trying to find out what all the noise was about. It was Angela who finally told everyone not so politely to 'shut the hell up' for the sake of all the other diners. Everyone laughed and just went back to talking to the couple of people within their vicinity. It was only then that I realised I hadn't yet gotten any food to eat and I was extremely hungry. I looked to see that all Alice had on her plate was a salad, which didn't exactly tempt me. Edward's plate, however was sitting just to my left with fries spilling out over the side. I looked up quickly to see that he was still talking to Ben and Angela, so I moved my hand at rapid speed to grab a golden stick from his plate. Just as I was putting the thing into my mouth, he turned to me and chuckled.

He pushed his plate towards me, completely amused at my attempt to be sneaky. "I wouldn't have taken you for a _'Wuthering Heights'_ fan."

I smile sheepishly as I take a few more fries from his plate. "I'm not," I admit. I hated the damn book. I couldn't really understand why everyone on earth seemed to praise something that I physically had to force myself to read. I told Edward my honest opinion about it and he just laughed at my honesty, seeming surprised by it. I don't know why men always assumed women liked that particular novel. It was overly styled to a point where you had to wonder whether or not Bronte actually thought her audience were idiots. I would go with a yes. Edward agreed with my opinions about the book, which I did not find particularly surprising. The majority of men that I knew didn't like the style in which the book was written even if they could appreciate the meaning and the significance of it. Other men I knew just hated the story from beginning to end. I was just about to ask him to elaborate when he asked me where I had been before coming here to join everyone.

"Nowhere exciting," I admitted. "Just wanted to take a little walk; get a bit of fresh air." I knew that although the people around us weren't exactly listening to our conversation, they would definitely hear me clearly if I admitted to him that I was round the other side of the audition building smoking. Living in California and telling people you smoked would have been like living in Texas and telling people you didn't eat meat; simply not done. This place was all about healthy living and the perfect lifestyle and smoking was very much taboo. Not only could it give you cancer, but it also made you age beyond your years – the horror! I also wondered whether or not Edward would be one of those people that visibly recoiled back from you when you told them of your habit – he did, after all, go running on a regular basis.

"So you walked all the way out of the city and back in less than twenty minutes?" Edward joked. "That's kind of impressive Miss Swan."

"I have many talents, Mr Cullen," I quip back, winking at him for added effect. It was very easy to joke around with Edward, much more so now that we were supposed to both be in this place at the same time and it didn't actually look like I was following him to all his favourite spots in the city.

"Are you ready for the rest of the afternoon?" I ask after he finishes laughing at me.

He shrugs in response. "I don't really have a choice now do I?"

"You don't sound too confident," I point out, puzzled by it. He had been superb in the scenes this morning and even if I didn't know he already had the part, I would pretty much have suspected that he would after the performances this morning.

"That would be because I'm not," he confessed. There must be something about me that draws everyone auditioning for the male lead of this movie to tell me about their insecurities. "Especially with the scenes they picked out for this afternoon."

I raised an eyebrow in question at the end of his statement. "You would have preferred to do other scenes?"

He nodded. "I would like to have tried reading the scene where she leaves him for good," he explained. "The one where she finally just walks out and marries the guy that her parents wanted her to."

"That's my favourite scene of the whole film," I tell him, a little more excited than I should be for that statement. It was true though. The equivalent point in the poem was also probably my favourite part of it, though I also did love the way he described realising that he had fallen in love with her for the first time. In terms of the film, I loved that scene simply because of its intensity and the way it affected the rest of the movie. The drastic change in both of the lead characters after that point was so dramatic that they could almost have been entirely different people. It would have been easy to split the movie into two parts, with that very scene ending the first part.

"It's my favourite too actually," Edward admitted. "I love the way everything just changes after it, like the rose-tinted glasses that the film's forced the audience to look through have finally fallen off and you see these two incredibly flawed people in the lives they were supposed to have...and then you see it all go to hell."

I nodded enthusiastically through his justification of why he favoured the final break-up scene because it was almost exactly what went through my mind when I first read it, but I had never really been able to put it into words before. It kind of excited me that Edward saw the film and the story in the same way that I did because it would make it that much easier for the both of us to play off of one another within scenes. I had a feeling that we would bring out the best in each other whilst we were playing these two characters and I just couldn't wait to actually start filming. Still, for now, we had the rest of the auditions to do and when the rest of the table started to gradually get up and move towards the door of the small canteen, Edward and I got up with them and made our way back to the main audition building.

*

The rest of the afternoon went much like the morning; Edward was fantastic in every scene he participated in and everyone thought so. Although watching him from the sidelines didn't have the same effect as acting with him, everyone was pretty much in agreement that he had been the best actor to audition by far. Jessica, I was sure, was having second thoughts about Mike now that she had seen Edward, albeit not really seriously. Sue was in absolute raptures when auditions ended, herding Edward into her small office before he got chance to talk to anyone else. I didn't think she would offer him the part outright – that wasn't how things were done – but I was fairly sure that she would make it clear to him that he had been the best. Sue wasn't exactly great at hiding her emotions – probably why she worked so well behind the camera instead of in front of it.

I hung back as everyone else started leaving, wanting to talk to Sue myself about how the rest of the production and casting staff thought the day had gone. I didn't think that anyone would disagree with the fact that Edward had given the best performance so far, but I knew that some of the staff were reluctant to have so few big names attached to this project. Really, the only name the average household would recognise was that of Peter Gibson, who would be playing the role of Kristen's father. He was still finishing work on his TV show and couldn't join the rest of the cast in these auditions, lucky bastard. He had been extremely reluctant to sign onto the project at first, but his wife had apparently been a very big fan of both the band Rob had been in and the man himself and so convinced him to take the part. Although the film studio had obviously given Sue the go ahead to cast Edward, it had to look like it was a decision reached by everyone involved in casting, not just Sue. If things looked as if they weren't going to go Edward's way, the studio would have stepped in to insist that he was hired, but no one wanted it to get that far or people would start talking.

I heard laughing coming from Sue's small room as I waited on the other side of the door. It sounded as if she was having the time of her life with Edward and I smiled to myself at what I'm sure she would have tried had she been twenty years younger and not married. Sue was never the type to fawn over someone, but something about Edward Cullen obviously had her acting like a fifteen year-old school girl again and I was a little glad to know that it wasn't just me. I heard the muffled voices in the room come nearer to the door before it opened and revealed the two of them both chuckling away at something that I wasn't able to make out when the door was still closed.

Sue saw me first and the chuckles died down, but she was still smiling. "Hello Bella," she greeted, her tone surprised. "What are you still doing here?"

"I came to talk to you actually," I told her. "Just to ask how you think it went today and whether you had any notes for me."

Sue shook her head. "Today was perfect," she said, looking at me pointedly. It was such an obvious move that if Edward had been looking at her, he would definitely be suspicious about something. "I was just telling Edward exactly how brilliantly it went in fact."

I raised my eyebrow at the both of them, looking from Edward's laughing face to Sue's happy smile. "Not like you to stroke egos Sue."

"Not what they said in the 60's Bella," Sue joked and I think my eyes bugged out a little at her implication as Edward just laughed loudly. I think my mouth may have dropped a bit and I had to shake my head physically to shake off my thoughts of a peace-loving Sue in a society with too much love and too much freedom. Still, I had nothing to say after that particular comment and so all I could do was continue to stare whilst Sue laughed harder at my expression. "I have a meeting on the other side of town," she said when her mirth had died down a little. "Is that all you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Yeah," I said, still reeling from joke/confession that Sue had revealed. "That was it. I guess I'll see you on Monday."

"Sure," she said, ushering both Edward and I out of her office so that she could lock it. "Edward, we'll be in touch with you definitely before Tuesday, if not sooner. Have a good weekend. You deserve it." She turned away from both of us without even waiting for a response and started walking down the hall towards one of the side exits where her car was parked.

Edward and I watched her retreating back for a while, unsure of what was going on. Sue had gone from joking with the both of us to pretty much briskly dismissing us because she had more important things to do. I kind of felt like a spare part and neither Edward nor I had a clue of what to say after that whirlwind conversation, but when we caught each other's eye for the first time since Sue left, we just both burst out laughing. I couldn't even tell you what we were laughing about, but for about five minutes all we could do was giggle like two twelve year-old girls who had just seen our teachers do something naughty. Finally, gasping for breath, I said something about needing to go home and eat because someone's lunch hadn't exactly been nutritious or filling.

"Oh, sorry," Edward apologised, sarcasm lacing his tone. "Remind me to get something more substantial for you to steal next time."

"Don't worry I will," I quipped back, but Edward just shook his head with his usual crooked smirk playing on his lips and walked out to my truck with me. When we got there, he watched me climb up into the driver's seat and waved me off, turning to go back into the audition building when I turned on the engine.

"Do you not have a home to go to Edward?" I called out over the noise of my truck.

Edward stopped walking and turned around. "Having a home to go to is not my problem," he called back. "It's the getting there that I seem to be having problems with."

I raised my eyebrows in question before I remembered his argument with Rosalie that I had overheard at lunch time. She had driven off in his car and it seemed as if she hadn't yet brought it back, if she was actually going to bring it back. "Do you need a ride?" I offered before I had any time to question the thought that had sprinted from my mind and out of my mouth before I was even aware of it.

He looked at me for a few moments, as if wondering whether or not I was being serious with my offer. I don't really know why he would think I was kidding because it was a really lame thing to be joking about, but after a while he shrugged and nodded before walking towards my truck. "You sure you don't have better things to do?" he asked before getting in.

"Sure I do," I reply, grinning. "But I guess they can wait until I do my good deed for the day."

Edward laughed and finally climbed into my awaiting truck. "You're just that important huh?"

"You know it!" I explained, pulling out of the parking lot and into the busy street beyond. Edward just rolled his eyes, shaking his head at my attempted jokes and choosing not to reply to them. I don't know what it was about him that made me laugh and joke far more than I did with people I didn't really know. I wasn't the kind of person to kid around with virtual strangers and essentially that was what Edward was to me. I had met him three times previously and spent less than 12 hours in total with him before today, but it didn't seem to matter in terms of how we interacted. It sounded weird, but I felt like he had been my friend for the longest time. He got my stupid jokes and he understood certain thoughts that even I didn't think made sense. Edward and I just kind of clicked and it was nice to know that I didn't have a personality problem when it came to connecting with other people – no matter what the press said.

Edward directed me to his apartment, which I found wasn't actually that far from Jasper's bar. When I mentioned this, Edward elaborated a little more on his friendship with the bar's owner and I found out that the quaint back room that the rest of the cast and I had more or less taken over the other night was actually kind of dedicated to Rosalie. I didn't think Alice would appreciate that piece of information even though I personally thought that Rosalie was very likely with Edward, or very close to being. His small neighbourhood was nice enough with very few houses around, but a hell of a lot of tall apartment blocks. Edward's particular apartment complex wasn't actually that tall, consisting of only 10 floors by the looks of things from the ground.

"Thanks a lot Bella," he said as I pulled to a stop just in front of the black gates that guarded the entrance of the complex from unknown people.

I shrugged. "It's no problem Edward," I tell him honestly. "It's not like you live too far away and it's kind of on my way home anyway." That was a lie. My house was pretty much on the other side of town, almost thirty miles from Edward's apartment, but I didn't want him to feel bad for accepting the ride.

He got out of the truck, but didn't shut the door right away, looking as if he was working up the nerve to say something. He opened his mouth, but then closed it again quickly and shook his head, looking very confused and quite amusing. He kind of looked like a kid trying to blow a bubble in some gum and failing miserably.

"What is it?" I asked after he opened his mouth to speak for the tenth time in about five minutes.

He smiled at me sheepishly. "I don't suppose you want to come up for coffee do you?" he said quickly, looking just past my shoulder instead of directly at me. "Just as a thank you or whatever."

I looked at Edward for a moment, standing there being extremely nervous about asking me into his apartment for coffee – almost like we had just been on a date and he was asking me for something a _lot_ more than coffee. It was kind of...cute, I guess. Edward didn't seem to be the type of guy who was nervous or unsure about anything to do with himself of his life. I mean looking at the guy, one would think that he would be exactly like James. However after having spent some time with him, I knew that he wasn't like that at all. In fact, Edward seemed rather unaware of how he affected people around him, both because of how he looked and how talented he was. Right now, I could tell he was nervous because he thought I would say no or think he was weird for asking me, like he was over-stepping some sort of boundary between the two of us.

I smiled widely and nodded my head, choosing to end his misery. "Sure," I agreed. "Maybe you can say thank you with dinner even. I mean you totally owe me for that awful dinner you provided."

* * *

**AN: Sorry for the late update...writing my dissertation has taken over my life. Thanks for the reviews and I hope this chapter isn't too disappointing. I'm not too sure if I was in the right mind set to write this when I actually wrote it, but anyway...**


	7. Chapter 7 The Other Side of the World

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything that is publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 7 – EPOV**

Rain. Again. I shouldn't have been surprised to see the heavy grey clouds lining the sky as they poured open to cover the equally grey streets below with heavy drops of cold water; it had, after all, been raining in just the same manner for the past three days. It was June, but you wouldn't know it from the scene below me where people were wrapped tightly in water-proof coats, huddled under black umbrellas. The colours associated with summer was completely absent on the scene that I was looking down on, which matched exactly the room that I was surveying the world outside from. This room, which I had inhabited for the past three days was just as free of colour as the outside world, but instead of grey it was filled with tones of neutral beige and off-whites. It was supposed to be classy and timeless, I was sure, but instead ended up being cold and unwelcoming. Or maybe it was just because I knew the people that owned this room, this entire house in fact, and this room fitted them to a tee.

It was seven o'clock in the morning and the people below the window were scuttling about on the wet streets trying to get to work. The city was already bustling even at this relatively early hour of the day. The house I was in, however, was as quiet as a library. There were no signs of life outside of the room that I was occupying, not a hint that someone else was even in the house, let alone awake. The large house was often empty, kept in the city for certain occasions and only ever occupied for a maximum of two months at a time. The house was grand and luxurious, but it certainly didn't remind anyone of a home that a family could live in, that children could grow up in; probably because it never did serve that purpose. I turned away from the window to look at the sleeping figure that lay spread out across the bed that I was supposed to have occupied last night. The only other sound apart from my own breathing was Rosalie's soft snoring, which had served as a constant reminder of why I was half-way across the world again.

The day that Rosalie had appeared at the audition building requesting my car and obviously not in the mood to be trifled with was the day she had gotten some very unsettling news. It wasn't bad really – in fact, the news was actually incredible and something that a lot of people had been working on for the past five years. However, the news had also dredged up some memories that Rosalie had buried deep within her psyche in order to allow her to function in society. Now we were back in the place that she had been itching to leave since she was thirteen and she was once again in the middle of the nightmare that she thought she had out-grown. I sighed heavily, leaning against the window and keeping my eyes on Rosalie's still sleeping form. She hadn't been able to sleep last night in her own room and so had come into mine at three in the morning. She hadn't actually fallen asleep until two hours ago after she had exhausted herself crying and fuming, reminding me of the time she had finally admitted the extent of what she had suffered not too long before we met. I had been quite protective of Rose from the moment I met her, though she had always insisted that she didn't need anyone to look out for her, to take care of her. However, when she told me just how bad it was, just how horrific it had all actually been, I couldn't help but want to wrap her up in cotton wool and protect her from the entire world. The same protective instincts had kicked in the moment I heard what exactly she had been upset about the day of my audition.

_Rosalie had not been home when I finally fell asleep, nor had she answered her phone or any of the text messages that I had left her asking her where the hell she was. I was worried about her, but when I called Carlisle to ask if he had seen her, he had said yes and that I needed to just leave her alone; she wasn't ready to come to me, to talk to me, but she would be and when she was, she would find me. This had me even more worried than I had been to start with. Rose was not the type of person to just disappear and think about things. Usually, she got into a hell of a lot of trouble because she __**didn't**__ think about what she was actually doing – she always just reacted. I stayed up till two in the morning waiting for her to come home, but eventually fell asleep on the couch with the lights still on and fully clothed. _

_I woke up the next morning to the sound of the door closing and wondered who was coming into my room. Then I noticed the discomfort all over my body and wondered what the hell I'd gotten myself into last night – that is until my brain finally caught up with my body and noticed the fact that I wasn't actually in my room, but in the living room lying down on the couch. I opened my eyes to find Rosalie looking directly down at me, her ice blue eyes full of curiosity at my current position. _

"_Couldn't find your way to your room?" she asked, backing away as I sat up. _

"_Couldn't you?" I questioned back. My neck hurt like hell and when I rolled it to loosen it up, I heard cracking in several places – that couldn't be good, right? Rosalie's face went from being curious and a little amused to being completely blank. Shit. "Sorry," I apologised, look at her directly now. "It's none of my business where you were."_

_She nodded and sat down on the coffee table near the couch, looking down and taking a deep breath. "I got a...delivery yesterday," she said finally, her head still down so that it seemed as if she was relating this to her lap instead of me. I nodded, but said nothing because I knew she didn't need me to; she would carry on when she was ready. "It was a letter. Well...not a letter exactly...more like...more like a court order. From England."_

_Oh shit! Even before she said the last two words I knew exactly where this was going and I wanted more than anything else to have been able to stop it. Rosalie's past had finally caught up with her even though she had run almost six thousand miles away from it. _

"_Apparently he's...there was..." she stopped talking, her breathing uneven and tears falling silently down her face. I had seen Rosalie Hale cry three times in the entire time I had known her and every single one of those times had been related to the reason she was crying now. I waited for I don't even know how long for her to be able to go on. She wiped the tears from her face and took a deep, shaky breath, head still bowed. "They've gathered enough evidence finally," she relayed to me. "The trial starts in just over a week and they want me to go over and testify against him."_

_Even though I knew it was coming, I still couldn't stop the sharp intake of breath that left me. I didn't know what to say to her because there was absolutely nothing on this earth that I could say that would make this any easier. Rose had been living her life for the past five years as if her past hadn't happened. She moved to a country where only two people knew of her life before, knew her troubled past and she had never mentioned it to anyone else, no matter how close she may have gotten to them. Even Jasper didn't know the full truth to Rosalie's move to the US. There was no need for me to question whether she would go or not because even though it would undoubtedly put her in the hell that she had tried too hard to leave behind, Rosalie would never miss a chance to put this right wrong, to give this guy exactly what he deserved. _

"_When are you going?" I asked her after several minutes of strained silence._

_She sniffed and looked up at me for the first time since she started to tell me exactly what had happened. "The third of next month," she said, her voice rough from the crying. "I only have to stay for a couple of days to give my testimony, but-"_

"_You want to see the verdict," I finished for her. Of course she would. Rosalie needed to see this nightmare finally come to an end, which meant that she needed to see justice finally served. She also, in my opinion, needed to face her parents and force an apology out of them, but that was something I didn't want to get into with her right now; there were more pressing matters to talk about. "Have you looked at flights yet?"_

_She nodded. "Carlisle booked me on a flight last night," she told me. "I handed in my last paper yesterday anyway so school will be okay. I called the staff in London last night too and they said that my...that __**they**__ were at the Brighton house and wouldn't be in the city for a good month." The last part was said with rightful disgust on her part. "Apparently the trial isn't enough to stop them from burying their heads in the sand."_

_I had voiced my condemnation of the actions of Rosalie's parents many times before and I felt the need to do it again this time, just to get rid of the anger that shot through me every time I thought about the extra horror they had subjected her to, but it wouldn't help her right now. She knew that her parents were shit; she didn't need me to remind her of it. They had abandoned her in one of the worst moments of her life and they had chosen to believe the worst of her instead of just simply believing her. I didn't know how they could have just turned their backs on their only daughter in the manner that they had, but I knew that she was better off without them if that was how they chose to behave. It absolutely enraged me that even now, when faced with overwhelming evidence that they were wrong and that their daughter had been telling the truth the whole time, they chose to ignore it and keep themselves cocooned in their world of make-believe. In the midst of my anger on my best friend's behalf, I realised that she had implied that she was going by herself. Was she insane?!_

"_You know that I'll be going with you right?" I stated, not asking, but telling. Even if she said she didn't want me to go with her right now, she would appreciate it in the end._

_She looked surprised for a moment and then shook her head. "No," she refused. "No, you're not. You have so much going on right now Ed," she reasoned. "Not only are you possibly going to get this movie role, but you still have a lot of stuff with your Mom going on. This is not your problem and I'm not getting you involved in it too."_

"_I am involved Rosalie," I insisted, sitting a little straighter and moving to the edge of the couch so that I was closer to her. "You're my best friend and if you're involved, I'm involved. Got it?"_

_She smiled weakly at me, weakly, but definitely sincerely. "What about the movie though?" she attempted again even though I hadn't even been given the role yet._

_I shook my head. "Even if they give me the role, I don't have any real commitments to it until pre-production starts in three weeks and even if they wanted me around, movie roles are a dime a dozen in this town. Rosalie Hale is one of a kind."_

_She laughed outright at this, even though her eyes were still full of a sadness that had never really disappeared. She had been haunted by her past every step of the way since she left England and I knew that even when she didn't mention it, even when she seemed as if she was on top of the world, it was always in the back of her mind, holding her back, never letting her really move on. Perhaps this was her chance. Perhaps after the trial, Rosalie would finally get the closure she had been trying to find for the past five years. One could only hope. _

I crossed the room and sat on the couch on the end of the bed, my eyes travelling over the blank walls that faced me. I had been in this house only once before and I had hated it then, much as I did right now. It was oppressive and entirely without character or personality, which was what it had probably been designed to look like. It wasn't designed to make the guest comfortable within their surroundings, but rather impressed and intimidated by them. I couldn't imagine growing up like this and I really didn't understand why Rose would spend such an emotionally charged time in this place. When I had suggested we get a hotel, she had refused, telling me that there was a perfectly good house in London that we could stay in. Even if the staff told her parents that she was there, they would never come to actually see her. We would have the place to ourselves completely; which would have been okay, had the entire building not reminded me of her parents. Maybe she had demons that she needed to lay to rest here. Maybe she just wanted to be somewhere familiar even if it was going to raise horrible childhood memories.

I rubbed my face with my hand, wondering what would happen after this was over. Royce was going to be found guilty – that much was obvious. There wasn't a jury on the face of the earth that would set him free after all the evidence that they had collected against him. Yet, when he was finally sent to rot in prison for the rest of his life like he should have been much sooner, what would happen to Rosalie, to all his victims. Could their lives finally come out of the stasis that they must surely have been in, in one form or another for the past few years? Was his sentencing really going to be the end of it all? Somehow, I really doubted it. Even if Rosalie seemed like she had put the worst behind her, I really doubted that she had. After all, how could you get over something as horrific as years of abuse at the hands of someone you trusted? She may have seemed like she had put it all behind her, but had that really been the case? Would it be the case now?

There were so many questions going through my mind and I really needed someone to talk to. I took my cell phone out of my pocket and realised that I hadn't actually turned it back on the night before. It was already nearly eight o'clock here, meaning that it would be three in the morning on the East coast where Carlisle and Esme currently were. The wedding had been postponed in the light of what was happening with Rose, but the two of them were spending some time with Esme's family, trying to appease them about the fact that the two of them had gotten engaged so quickly. Carlisle had wanted to come with us, but Rosalie absolutely refused because she didn't want Esme to be with us, but neither did she want to take Carlisle away from his fiancé after she had been the cause of their wedding date being pushed back. Neither Carlisle nor I actually thought that Esme would be annoyed or angered in any way by the way things had gone, but Rosalie was adamant that Carlisle should stay at home and get on with planning the rest of his future. However, that didn't mean that my older brother couldn't call me five times a day to get updates about what was going on here. There must be at least two messages from him since I last had my cell on.

I dialled my answer phone service and sure enough, I had three new messages. Obviously I had underestimated how much free time Carlisle had to make transatlantic phone calls. The second message was pretty much the same as the first and pretty much the same as every single conversation we had been having about the ordeal. He wanted to know how Rosalie was really coping underneath the unaffected exterior she tried to portray to everyone, even him. He wanted a blow-by-blow account of the happenings in court and he wanted to know how I was coping with everything and whether I needed to talk to someone else who could give me perspective. Carlisle really was the quintessential medical practioner – always wanting to care for other people. The third message surprised the hell out of me. I had been expecting to hear my brother's voice asking the same questions he had in the previous two messages, but the feminine tone coming from my phone was definitely not that of my older brother's.

"Hey Edward, it's me," the voice greeted. "So, I was passing by a bookshop today and got the sudden compulsion to go in and guess what? I ended up buying a load of books, including some Virgil. I just thought I'd let you know what an annoying influence you are Mr. Cullen. I've been sat in the same spot for hours just reading! Urgh! Call me back."

The message made me smile. Bella had apparently called me at twelve thirty this morning, four thirty back on the West coast. It wasn't really that strange that she had called because over the past couple of weeks, since the day of the audition, we had sort of become friends. Well...no, there was no _'sort of'_ about it – we were definitely friends. We had spent a lot of time together before I came out here with Rosalie and she was the first person that I actually called when I heard that I had gotten the part in the movie. I had been extremely shocked and then excited and the only person I knew who could understand exactly what I was feeling was Bella, so it was completely natural that I had dialled her phone without even realising I had done it. She had shouted and laughed along with me before suggesting that we actually meet up to celebrate instead of damaging our ear drums through the phone. It was incredibly _easy_ hanging out with Bella; I didn't have to constantly think about what to say because the silence between us was so comfortable. I also liked that she wasn't really part of the rest of my life because when I was with her, I could forget a hell of a lot of other things that were happening.

We talked about the most mundane things, from the weather, to books, to films, to music and never once did we talk about anything serious or heavy. In fact, in all our conversations, I don't think I still knew what went on in Bella's everyday life and nor did she know about anything that went on in mine. It was nice, an escape if you will and for some reason, I think I was giving her the exact same thing she was giving me. I mean I didn't know what Bella would need to get away from, or even if she had anything to get away from so maybe it was all just wishful thinking on my part that led me to believe that I was offering her the same sense of normalcy she was giving me.

I dialled her number, making sure to put the appropriate internation calls in order to successfully her back before it even registered in my mind that it was midnight in LA and she may have actually been asleep. The phone had already rung three times and I thought about putting it down should I wake her up, but then she answered.

"Edward," she greeted without the customary hello. "Oh my god, I can't believe you told me to read all this stuff, I can't put it down!"

I chuckled lightly and began to walk out of the room, not wanting to wake Rosalie, who really did need to rest. "Hello to you too Bella," I greeted. "It's not my fault actually, blame the authors."

"I would, but they're all dead so the blame is placed squarely on your shoulders Cullen," she persisted. "Where are you anyway? The line's a little weird."

"I'm right outside your door," I joked, my tone completely serious. I heard a thud on the other end of the line, which either meant that Bella had dropped the phone or she had fallen off of something. Obviously she had taken me seriously when I said I was outside, even though I had no idea where she lived because we had always either hung out in my apartment or somewhere completely neutral.

"Seriously?" she choked out a few moments later.

I snorted at this. "No. How can I be? I don't know where you live."

She let out a forced laugh; Bella sounded a little nervous, which was a little strange because she very rarely appeared nervous in my opinion. "Right," she said finally, clearing her throat. I heard some rustling on her end of the phone. "Well, I just thought you were getting back to your old habit of stalking me."

Her tone was teasing, a much more familiar Bella than the nervous one that had been speaking to me only seconds before. I let out a loud laugh and then curbed it because even though I was outside the room, I had a feeling that Rosalie wouldn't need a lot of noise to wake her up. "I believe it was _you_ who phoned me Bella."

I could actually picture her shrugging her shoulders at my response, as if it was irrelevant that she sought me out first. "You didn't even answer my question," she diverted – a sure sign that she knew I had won the argument. "Where are you?"

I paused for a fraction of a second, not really knowing how I could tell her that I was in London without revealing that the reason was Rosalie. Well, I guess I could say I was with Rosalie because Bella never really asked questions about her, probably reasoning that my friendship with Rosalie was completely separate to my friendship with her. "I'm in London," I said finally.

There was a pause whilst she digested this piece of information. "With Rosalie, right?"

I nodded, then realised that we were on the phone and she couldn't see my affirmation. "Yeah. We're here for a couple more days."

"Will you be back for the start of pre-production?" she asked, her voice hinting at a change that I couldn't figure out.

"Yeah," I answered again. "I've got it all worked out so that I arrive a day before we start and can sleep off the jet-lag."

"That's great," she said, but again there was something in the way she said it that had my furrowing my eyebrows and wondering what the hell was happening on her end of the conversation. Bella now seemed a little reluctant to talk to me, which was maybe because it was very late back in the US, or she was uncomfortable with possibly having to talk about another person involved in the other's life. "Listen, since you're actually calling from the other side of the Atlantic right now, I should let you go lest your cell phone bill be sky high." I kind of got the feeling that she wanted to say something, but didn't know quite what to say and now she just wanted to get off the phone. Maybe she was curious as to why exactly Rose and I were in England, but didn't feel it was her place to ask.

"Bye Bella," I said, quickly in case she hung up before I could finish. "I'll call you when I get back."

She made some non-committal noise and hung up without even making a joke. I was puzzled and stood staring at my cell phone for a good few minutes wondering whether I inadvertently said something to piss her off. I went over the conversation in my head and just didn't see where I could have offended her in any way, so I put it down to the fact that Bella did want to know why I was here, but didn't want to appear obtrusive. The explanation was good enough, because after all, I often found myself wanting to ask about her family or her boyfriend when she mentioned them in passing, but never actually did it because it felt like I was over-stepping the invisible boundaries of our friendship. It was very strange because as comfortable and easy as our friendship was, both Bella and I knew that there were certain things we couldn't talk about and certain questions we couldn't ask. I didn't normally think about it too much because it wasn't really important, it had never really restricted our friendship too much, but right now I wasn't so sure why I had never brought it up before.

I was debating whether or not I should send a text to Bella telling her a joke so that whatever weirdness had been between us on the phone at the end of the conversation wouldn't fester over the next few days. I didn't want to turn up for pre-production and have an unidentified atmosphere between us. Then again, maybe I was over-thinking everything because I only got about three hours sleep last night and Bella would be fine. Maybe she really just didn't want me to spend an absolute fortune on the phone call because as far as she knew, I was a semi-struggling actor. I was brought back to the present by the door snapping close behind me. I turned around and saw Rosalie trying to smile at me in greeting, but her face was still all blotchy and her eyes still puffy from crying all night – she looked far from her usual self.

"Hey," I greeted softly, my voice quiet even though there was no one else in the house except the two of us – Rosalie had given the staff that took care of this place the week off. "Did I wake you?"

She shook her head, pushing the strands of hair that fell about her face as she did so behind her ears. "I," her voice was hoarse and she had to clear it before she could go on speaking. "I was awake when you left the room. I just didn't want to get out of bed yet."

"I wouldn't know the feeling," I told her. "Someone kicked me out of my own bed last night." It was a weak and forced joked, but she appreciated it all the same, giving me a short, sharp laugh that was so unlike her normal laughter. Rosalie didn't like being made to feel like she needed someone else, which was perfectly understandable given her history, and it took a lot for her last night to come to me for help, so I joked about it like I would have had she come to my room just because she felt like annoying me.

"Who were you speaking to on the phone?" she asked as we walked along the hall to the stairs.

"Bella," I answered before I had time to filter out the immediate response. It wasn't as if Rosalie didn't know Bella and I were friends, but it wasn't as if she liked the idea either. Rosalie seemed to be under the impression that I liked Bella in an entirely different way to 'just friends', to which I replied that I may have been an actor, but my life wasn't a romantic comedy. Bella was great and undoubtedly beautiful, but the fact that she was my co-star, had a boyfriend and was only 18 meant that there was nothing between us more than friendship. Still, Rose wouldn't be deterred in her assumptions and kept telling me to be careful every time I went out with Bella or after I had spoken to her on the phone. Sometimes Rose would catch Bella leaving the apartment and then give me a knowing look as walked into her bedroom, as if she had just caught the two of us making out like horny teens on the couch.

She turned her head as she stepped off the bottom step and turned to look at me, curiosity written all over her face. "Must have been pretty late in LA," she commented, walking backwards just so she could keep looking at me with her piercing eyes. "It was lucky she was awake."

I nodded, careful to keep my face impassive and to think about the words coming out of my mouth this time. "Yeah," I agreed. "Apparently I was interrupting an exciting night of reading." I didn't add that she had been reading the very books I insisted everyone had to read before they died – that would have just added duel to Rosalie's imaginary fire.

"I thought her boyfriend was back in town now," Rosalie commented, eyes narrowing even though they were pretty much almost closed anyway due to the puffiness.

I nodded. "I should think so." I really wanted for this conversation to stop.

"Was he not there?" Apparently Rosalie was more than happy to continue it to keep her mind off other things.

"I didn't ask."

We had reached the kitchen, but instead of getting any food out, Rosalie just stood in front of the refrigerator with her arms crossed over her chest and looking very much like a pit-bull guarding faithfully guarding its owner. "Does he know that you two are friends?"

I shrugged, pushing off the counter I was leaning on opposite of Rose. She was blocking my way to the food and forcing me to talk about this, or so she thought. Instead, I picked her up and placed her to the side so the door was now accessible. She was so surprised that all she could do for a good few seconds was stare at me open-mouthed. I buried my head in the cool container, searching for the eggs and bacon I had picked up a couple of days ago after getting to the house and realising that no people in it also meant there was no food.

"You're awfully defensive about the whole thing," Rosalie observed after she had gotten over the fact that I man-handled her to get her out of my way. "If there was really nothing going on, you wouldn't mind talking about it, surely."

I shook my head and rolled my eyes with my back still turned towards her. She was changing tactics and implying that I was hiding something to get me to talk, but seeing as I wasn't a naive eight year-old, I really don't know how she expected that to work. "I don't mind talking about it," I told her calmly, finally spotting the pack of bacon behind the cartons of apple juice that Rosalie loved. "In fact, I believe we talk about it quite a lot. So much so in fact that I think I actually spend more time talking to you about Bella than I actually spend talking to Bella herself." I hadn't actually thought about that until it came out of my mouth, but once it did I realised that the words were indeed true and that was a little disturbing. Surely it was weird, by anyone's standards, to spend more time talking about someone than actually talking to them, especially when they were supposed to be your friend. No wonder Bella always joked about me stalking her – if Rosalie had her way, I was pretty sure I would be.

"I just don't want you to look like an idiot Ed," she insisted. "I don't want you falling for this girl only to have her turn around and tell you to fuck off because she already has a boyfriend and you were nothing more than a stop gap."

I snorted. "You really need to stop reading 'The Enquirer' Rose," I commented, reaching down to pull out a frying pan from the cupboard it was stored in. "Not every actor in the world is having an affair with their co-star."

"Yeah, you only wish you were," she said under her breath as she walked out of the kitchen. I didn't even bother replying and instead focused on making myself some bacon and eggs. One thing I absolutely loved about England was the bacon and the only real silver lining to being here was the fact that I could get my fill of the delicious meat. Crispy bacon was okay if you'd never tried the real stuff, but what they got over here was far, far tastier and much less fatty.

Rosalie, like many intelligent people, was like a dog with a bone once she got an idea into her head and right now, she refused to believe that I absolutely did not see Bella as anything other than a friend. Apparently when my lips were saying no, everything else about me was contradicting those words. I thought that it may have been an attempt to keep her mind off the things that were going on with her. It didn't make it any less annoying, but it stopped me from wanting to beat her over the head with my own arm just to get her to stop talking. I knew that she was having a hard time right now and that she needed something else to focus on so that she wouldn't break down every five minutes like she had done alone in her room last night, but I did wish that she had something else to occupy her mind with than making up a love life for me. I also wished that she didn't have to make up a love life for me, but I had been going through a dry-spell of late – ever since I moved to LA in fact.

It wasn't that I hadn't dated because I had, but ever since I had ended my two-year relationship with Claire, I hadn't found anyone that I could really connect with. I had been on countless first dates since moving to LA, but had only been on 10 second dates and one third. About a month ago, I decided to just stop going out with women for a while and concentrate on what the hell I went out there for in the first place – my career. Deep down, I wasn't entirely sure I was over Claire anyway because you didn't just get over someone you had been with for two years in the space of a few months. Or rather, maybe I wasn't over the end of the relationship. We had loved each other and in the beginning, I would venture to say that we had been madly in love with each other, but towards the end we both began to question whether we were still in love, or whether we were in love with the idea of love. When I decided to move to LA, we both made the decision to call it quits and just have a clean break, a fresh start. I still wonder whether either of us could have stopped it from happening – could have stopped our relationship from turning into just another insignificant detail of our lives. I think I was still a little saddened by it, by the way something I had thought so wonderful could end in such a blasé way. Hmmm...maybe that was how all relationships ended up becoming at some point, most people just didn't have the luxury of making a clean break.

**BPOV**

I was being an idiot. No, in fact, I was being completely crazy. Yes, that was the only way to describe what the hell had just happened. I had momentarily lost my god damn mind whilst I was on the phone to Edward and I would tell him that as soon I saw him again. I don't even know what just happened. One minute we were joking around and then he tells me he's in London and I start going insane? Who the hell was I? What was I doing? What was happening? I got up from the chair that I had been sitting in for about four hours and walked over to my kitchen to get a glass of water, noticing that it was nearly one in the morning. That must have been it; it was obviously very late at night (or very early in the morning) and I was tired, which meant that I had an excuse to be acting so fucking strangely. Yes, that's what I would tell Edward – I was tired. Except that I wasn't actually tired at all and I was pretty sure that if I went and laid down in my bed right now, I would spend the next two hours or so tossing and turning and wondering what the hell just happened.

I ran my hands through my hair and wondered whether I had any cigarettes in the apartment – a sure sign that I was on edge about something, though I don't really know what. Maybe I was on edge because I had just been a complete weirdo on the phone to someone who, although a friend, was actually still quite a new friend. No wonder I didn't make many new friends – I scared them all off with my insanity as soon as they were starting to feel comfortable around me. God, I really needed to get a grip! I needed to get a grip and to get the hell out of here so that I could smoke. Although Jake was at his parent's house tonight I didn't think it wise to smoke in the confines of my own home because the smell stayed far longer than I wanted it to and even with all the air freshener in the world, my boyfriend had a nose like a blood-hound. I didn't need him pissed at me about something else. I grabbed my keys from the counter of the kitchen and slipped a jacket on, deciding that I would drive to a gas station, pick up some cigarettes and drive around LA for a while smoking them with my window down to cancel out the smell of the smoke. I figured that between the driving and the smoking, I would get my head clear enough so that if I couldn't figure out what had happened during the conversation with Edward, I could just go to sleep. It was a win-win situation all around, really.

Generally, I hated driving in LA at this time of night because it wasn't exactly safe and the roads weren't exactly clear because there was always a bunch of people trying to find the next party as the bars began to close. However, I found that if I drove away from the centre of the city, more towards the outskirts, I could get away from the majority of the traffic and the next idiot celebrity wanting to make themselves a household name by driving on the wrong side of the road after drinking their weight in alcohol. There was a little route that I had found one night two years ago when I had been so nervous for an audition that I hadn't been able to sleep. Ever since then, I had driven it once in a while, usually around three in the morning when I had again been suffering from insomnia. I drove towards it again, stopping just a few miles from where I lived to get a pack of cigarettes from an extremely bored looking middle-aged man in a rather unflattering yellow uniform, before really putting my foot down and just driving.

My head was pretty full of crap at the moment, most of which could not be distinguished from each other so instead of taking each thing I thought might have been in there and trying to work it out, I just lit a cigarette and looked at the open road in front of me. It was kind of nice, not thinking about anything, even though there was still a bunch of messed up questions doing the rounds in my confused brain. Eventually though, as I smoked my second cigarette of the night, everything seemed to just stop buzzing and moving around and all I was left with were thoughts that I could understand, memories that I could look back to and actions that I could try and comprehend. The past couple of weeks had been...interesting, to say the least. Ever since the impromptu coffee – and later dinner – that I had at Edward's apartment that Friday, we had become...friends. I hesitated to use the word because even though we spent a lot of time hanging out and having fun together, neither Edward nor I, had ever really shared anything of consequence with the other one. Or at least it didn't seem like it. However, I was kind of a little...hurt when Edward had told me he was in London with Rosalie over the phone. Maybe hurt wasn't the right word...maybe it just kind of stung a little, to not have him tell me he was leaving before he actually left.

Or maybe I was just days from my period and I was getting a little crazy because of the damn hormones. Edward didn't _have_ to tell me anything. He didn't owe me an explanation as to where he was everyday of the week; I wasn't his damn keeper. I shook my head clear, frustrated with myself for being such an idiot. Edward must have hung up thinking that I was either on drugs or had a multiple personality disorder, which would seriously make things awkward the next time I saw him. I had ideas of texting him, but I had no idea how to explain my noticeably out of character behaviour without him thinking me insane; or rather more insane than he previously did.

I looked at the clock on my dashboard and saw that it was two thirty in the morning and somewhere in my mind a little voice weakly called out that I should be heading home instead of driving further and further away from the city. I didn't listen. Things in the rest of my life hadn't exactly been the greatest lately. My Mom and I hadn't spoken since Sam went back to college, not a single word in fact, and much like the rest of the situation with my mother, I didn't know how it had started and I didn't know how to remedy it. Jake and I had gotten into some stupid argument as soon as he came home about the fact that I still hadn't been thinking about living together. It really was a stupid argument and I don't even know who started it, but he had stormed out of my apartment early this morning or, more accurately, yesterday morning and hadn't been back since. I think he expected me to have missed his presence around my home so much in the last 3 weeks that I would have gladly moved in with him as soon as he came back. Apparently, that had not been the case.

I found that I liked living on my own, quite apart from the fact that I still wanted to live in my parent's home. I liked the freedom and independence of it. For instance, at this very moment, I was driving around in the middle of the night and had absolutely no one to answer to about it. I didn't have to leave a note for Jake telling him where I'd gone in case he woke up and found my side of the bed empty. Also, I wanted a space to call my own; a sanctum if you will. I wasn't exactly for the idea of having to share every little thing with someone, but maybe that was just the selfish actress within me. I should tell Jacob that I wasn't ready to move in with him in the foreseeable future, that would be the kindest thing to do and the most honest. I had known for a long time now that I wasn't ready yet, but I had been putting it off because I didn't want him to think that it meant I didn't love him. I did love Jake, but this issue wasn't something I could be moved on right now. The answer was no and it would be no for at least the next couple of years. I just hoped that he would understand.

Maybe the whole Jake thing was bothering me a lot more than I had thought it was and maybe that was the reason that I had been so emotional about the whole Edward thing earlier on – displacement. Also, though I would never admit it and would never even think about asking him, I was kind of curious as to why Edward and Rosalie were in London. I had found out that the two of them lived together and having spent some time in their apartment, it was clear that they weren't a couple...kind of. I knew that they slept in separate rooms, which no couple living together would do, but sometimes she would give me a look, or he would say something about her that led me to question whether or not all there was between them was friendship. However, there was no way in hell I would ever ask Edward that question and the few times I had tried to even make small talk with Rosalie had left me feeling distinctly unwelcome in their home and in her presence. I don't think she liked the idea of Edward and I being friends much because ever since we'd started to hang out, she'd been a little more than cold towards me. Her change in behaviour from the first time I met her also had me wondering if she saw me as a threat, which would have been utterly ridiculous because not only did I have a boyfriend that I loved, but I also knew I didn't even compare with her. As Edward himself had told me, Rosalie was not only devastatingly beautiful, but also unnervingly intelligent.

So now I had a whole list of reasons that I could give to Edward as to why I had been extremely weird on the phone and one which I would just keep to myself. I wondered whether he would ever tell me why he had accompanied his friend and roommate six thousand miles away. I shrugged and flicked the stub of my fourth cigarette out of my open window and onto the grey blur below me. It was now three in the morning and I had somewhere to be at ten later today, but somehow I just couldn't make myself get off at the next exit and turn around. Instead, I sped past the signs for the exit and carried on down the straight, empty stretch of freeway.

*

Being awake until four thirty in the morning and only having four hours of sleep the day you're meeting the director of a film that you desperately want a part in was not the best idea I'd ever had. Yet, here I was, at nine fifty, parking my old truck in someone's huge drive. The sun was scorching and there was a wonderful breeze rippling through trees lining the driveway, but all I wanted to do was turn around, drive back home and go back to bed. I really should have thought more about the fact that I wasn't exactly the nicest person when I hadn't had enough sleep – nor was I the sharpest. I don't know what the hell I was thinking last night. Well, perhaps it was the fact that I wasn't thinking at all that had led to this. I sighed, pulled my hair back into a ponytail, pushed my sunglasses further up my face and resisted the urge to pull yet another cigarette from the pack in my glove compartment. I had thought that once the audition process was over for my current project, I would quit, but apparently now I was more stressed than ever before because I was practically chain smoking.

The house that I pulled up to was a typical LA mansion, but I knew that the guy who owned it wasn't a typical LA director. I was coming to meet Emmett Mc Carty, Jake's current director and hopefully my future one. Jacob had told me that Emmett was 'putting the feelers out' for parts in a small movie that he was making and financing himself. The idea was a little out there and if anyone else had been directing it, I would have laughed at the mere suggestion of such a film. However, not only had everyone been raving about Emmett for a good few years, but Jake had come back practically in love with the guy. I would have been worried about losing my boyfriend to him had I not also heard about Emmett's reputation with the opposite sex. Oh, and of course Jacob loved me more than anyone else – which he'd proven surely by not talking to me for an entire day now. I shook my head clear of slightly annoyed thoughts of my boyfriend. It wouldn't do to be both tired and pissed.

I walked up to the pale wooden doors of the mansion, marvelling at just how big the thing was and wondering what sort of person it would take to be able to open it when suddenly, it did open and behind it stood the infamous movie director himself. I had seen Emmet Mc Carty on TV, of course – everyone had – but that did not compare to seeing him in person, where if he hadn't been wearing a very friendly smile, I would have been worried for my safety. Emmett was a very tall, very muscular, very intimidating man, but there was also a friendliness in his countenance that eased away the irrational thought in my head that he could crush me alive. Really, Emmett didn't seem like the director type – possibly why his films had been so fresh and innovative.

"Hey," Emmett greeted, standing aside to let me through the door. "Bella right?"

I nodded, waiting for him to close the door and lead me to a place to sit. "Thanks for meeting me Mr. Mc Carty."

Emmett let out a deep chuckle that reverberated around the large hallway. "Dude, it's Emmett. None of this _Mr. Mc Carty_ business please."

I laughed with him because it was impossible not to when I saw the way his entire face was shining with amusement and good humour. Emmett had a very..._cute_ face, which was at complete odds to the rest of his body. I mean I was sure that he could be extremely menacing if he tried, but when he smiled, he kind of looked like a 12-year old boy stuck in a grown man's body. He walked in front of me and took me to a large room containing 3 very comfortable looking sofas all centred around a huge plasma screen TV that took up at least half of one of the walls. Emmett...plopped (there simply was no other word for the way he just dropped into the sofa furthest to the left) down and invited me to sit next to him with a gesture of his hand. He was still grinning at me – dimples on show – as if he knew some secret I didn't.

"It's good to finally meet you Mr...Emmett," I begin, not really sure what tone to take with him. On the one hand, he didn't seem to be the type of guy who was into formalities and stuffy meetings. On the other hand, he was the director of a film I was trying to get a part in, so I didn't exactly want to come off overly casual.

"You too Bells," he said, leaning back further into the sofa, but still smiling happily at me. I hid the bristle at his use of the nickname Jacob had given to me within the first few weeks of knowing me. I had hated it then, I hated it now and the only person I had ever allowed to regard me by that name was my boyfriend – and only when I was in a particularly good mood. "Jacob's told me a hell of a lot about you. In fact, he's told the entire cast quite a lot about you."

I couldn't hide the cringe that accompanied that particular statement and wasn't at all surprised when Emmett let out a booming laugh that echoed around the large space. His laughter suited him to a tee – deep, surprising and larger than life – and even though I should have felt embarrassed at the fact that he had caught me expressing less than happy feelings about my boyfriend, I was rather amused by his laughter.

"Don't you like him talking about you Bella?" Emmett asked after his hilarity had subsided. "I promise you, it was all good. Too good in fact. We were beginning to wonder whether he was your boyfriend or some deranged fan."

I tried to give a half-hearted smile at his joke, but inside I was absolutely mortified and so I'm pretty sure it looked like I was in pain more than anything else. Certainly when Emmett saw my face, his subdued chuckling once again broke out into booming barks that I'm sure could be heard even from the beginning of his almost half a mile long driveway. "I kind of hate being the centre of attention," I explained feeling stupid for even saying it. I was a _performer_ for crying out loud; my entire career was based on me being in the spotlight and when I told people that I didn't actually like to be the focus of people's interest they were surprised and very confused. Emmett raised his eyebrows in bewilderment himself, but only for a second before his face cleared and he nodded at me, as if agreeing – with what, I didn't know.

"I know what you mean," he said. I had to admit, I was surprised and very disbelieving of this statement because Emmett didn't exactly seem like the kind of guy who shrank away from the limelight. In fact, I had seen him bask within it on several occasions. He caught my look of sceptics and shook his head. "No, I don't mean that I hate being the centre of attention. I freaking _love_ the spotlight on me. I get off on it in fact." He winked at me and I laughed softly. "What I mean is that I get the feeling of not liking something which goes hand in hand with your job," he clarified. "Working behind the camera doesn't exactly feed my exhibitionist side. Or at least it didn't, at first."

I had to say that I was a little surprised by Emmett's honesty – not many people would have admitted to being a bit of a spotlight whore, but he had absolutely no qualms in doing so. "I'm just...I still find it really uncomfortable to know that there are people out there who have never met me that are not only interested in my life, but can find information about it, you know?" I admitted. Obviously the tone that this particular meeting would take was me telling a virtual stranger – and the man who would potentially be giving me a job – some of my more private thoughts. "I also find it very hard to hear compliments."

"I don't know how you can stand to be with your boyfriend then," Emmett commented. "All he does is sing your praises. I felt my stomach knot and my heart sink at this as a flash of guilt ran through me. I knew that Jake loved me, but when presented with it in such a manner, I felt like a complete bitch for not being able to give him what he so obviously wanted from me; at least not being able to give it when he wanted it.

After a few moments of me not saying anything, but desperately trying not to show him that I felt awkward as hell, Emmett started talking about work. He told me about the concept of the film and what had inspired him to do it in the first place. I listened intently to him; the man was obviously extremely passionate about his job and even though he joked around at the beginning of our meeting, I could tell that he was extremely professional when it came down to it. He was also a genius and by the time he finished giving me a quick overview of the entire thing, I was shocked into silence and about ready to get down on my hands and knees begging him to give me a part, even if I just walked on and off again without saying anything.

"What do you think?" he asked when I failed to say anything a full minute after he had finished talking.

I closed my gaping mouth and shook my head clear in an attempt to be able to form coherent sentences again. "Fantastic," I eventually managed. "I don't quite know what to say to be honest; nothing that I can come up with is going to be good enough."

"Flattery will get you everywhere with me Bella," Emmett joked, though I wasn't entirely sure that he was just kidding. "Obviously Jake's taught you well. Which part do you see yourself in?"

"Any of them," I answered quickly, not at all embarrassed at the fact that I sounded far too eager. "Well, any of the ones that are female anyway."

Emmett let out a short laugh, but then looked at me appraisingly, as if he was trying to picture me in any of the parts within the film. "Hmmm," he began thoughtfully. "I think we're going to try you out as her sister. Not a main part, but an important one nonetheless. You going to be okay with that?"

I nodded rather too vigorously than I should have and very nearly gave myself whiplash, but to be perfectly honest, I was so excited about this film that I wouldn't have been able to control my reactions even with more than four hours sleep. "I'm more than okay with that," I tell him honestly. "When do auditions start?"

Emmett shook his head. "Auditions don't start ever," he told me. "This project is my baby so everyone that gets involved will be handpicked by yours truly; head-hunted even. I know the best places to find talent and I can spot it a mile off. The part's yours if you want it and if you don't feel right in it, we'll find you another one."

"But how do you know I'll be any good?" I asked and then mentally kicked myself because it seemed like I was talking myself out of a job that I desperately wanted. Self-deprecation was really going to ruin my life someday. I should have been telling him that I'd be the best and he'd made the right choice, but instead I was almost telling him to question himself and his decisions.

Emmett chuckled at me and shook his head in confusion. "Apart from the fact that I've seen several of your films Bella, I spent the first part of our meeting telling you that Jake had sung your praises to anyone that would listen."

Again, I spoke without my brain in gear at all. "He is rather biased though." Apparently I liked to not only smack my gift horse in the mouth, but also kick it in the balls."

"Are you trying to get out of doing the job before you even start?" Emmett asked incredulously. I shook my head emphatically, but stopped and stared incredulously at him when he started guffawing loudly at my panicked expression. "You and I are going to have a lot of fun working together kid," he said in between gasps of breath.

I bristled at the use of the word 'kid' in reference to myself, feeling like he was being a little condescending even if he was ten years my senior. I don't think Emmett noticed because at that very moment he was getting up and stretching out, reminding me once more that he was a hulk of a man. He walked me to the door and sent me on my way merrily, but not before mentioning that perhaps I should sleep more, which deflated me a little because I had fooled myself into thinking that he hadn't noticed the dark circles under my blood-shot eyes when we had been talking. I pulled my cell phone out as soon as I got back into my loveable truck and sent a text message to Edward before I had time to even think about it, let alone talk myself out of doing it.

_Just met Emmett Mc Carty and he gave me a part in his next film! On a complete high right now!!! Text me back as soon as you get this!_

As soon as I hit send, my phone started ringing and at first I just stared at it, wondering if Edward could read my damn mind. Then I noticed that it was Jacob's name flashing up on screen and not my friend's. I hesitated before answering it and then I felt terrible because he had a very big role in getting me this job and I was still a little pissed at him for storming out and refusing to talk to me for an entire day for something I couldn't exactly control. I pressed the 'accept' button and took a deep breath before greeting him. The first thing he did was apologise for behaving like an immature jerk and not waiting for me to make my mind up like he had promised in the first place. He knew I was reluctant to live with him and he had assured me that he wouldn't pressure me into making a decision and I now felt like he was doing just that. I felt simultaneously worse and better when he apologised; worse because I still felt extremely guilty and better because he was talking to me again and being his usual, thoughtful self.

Jake asked about my meeting with Emmett and then I felt even lousier for not telling him my news first when he had obviously been thinking about me today; god I was a bitch sometimes – a bitch and an awful girlfriend. I resolved to make it up to Jake and invited him over that night so that we could really talk and spend a little more time together. I don't know whether it was the separation, or the fact that it seemed as if we wanted different things in our lives right now, but it seemed as if our relationship was on a fine line and I didn't know what the hell to make of that. I'd missed him a hell of a lot when he was gone, but he'd only been back a couple of days before we started arguing – something we had rarely done before. I was extremely confused and in turn, I was pretty sure that I was confusing him and maybe my older brother was right and it was time to get everything out there. Jake offered to make dinner for me to celebrate, but my conscience wouldn't allow it and I told him that we should go out because we didn't do that too often anymore. He acquiesced and before long we had said goodbye after confirming our plans for tonight.

I drove home in deep thought – it seemed as if I was constantly doing the majority of my deep soul-searching activities in this truck these days. I honestly didn't know what to make of the current state of mine and Jake's relationship because we'd never been like this. I felt as if we were just going down different paths and there was nothing either of us could do to stop it. We had always been pretty independent and neither of us had ever tried to stop the other from doing anything that they wanted, but it seemed as if before, all those things ultimately led us to become closer and now it wasn't the case at all. I sighed deeply, running my free hand through my hair. I didn't know whether I was just over-analysing the situation because of the fact that I was tired and feeling extremely guilty, which annoyed the hell out of me. I was never one to over-think things in my life – I had always been so sure of everything, so head-strong, but now...now I just wasn't certain of anything.

My phone beeped as I pulled into the driveway of my home and I got a trans-Atlantic message that made the thoughts in my head a million times more jumbled than they already were

_The excitement was pretty clear from the over-use of exclamation marks!!! Haha. A new film already? When do you ever get time to breathe and just be you? Crazy girl._

* * *

**AN: For those of you who review, thank you very much. For those of you that don't thanks for reading the story anyway. I hope you enjoy it and still continue to do so.**


	8. Chapter 8 The End or The Beginning?

**WARNING: I think this chapter may be rated an M because of the sensitive and adult subject matter that it touches upon. Be warned before you read on.**

**AN: The opinions expressed by the characters here are not necessarily my own and were added to add humour and/or drama to the text. PLEASE don't take any offence because I promise you none was meant.**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 8 – BPOV**

_When do you ever get time to breathe and just be you?_

It had been a good five hours since Edward had asked me that question, but I hadn't been able to stop it from reverberating in my head since. Sometimes the question would be asked in Edward's voice, but the majority of the time it was asked in mine and that made me even more uncomfortable. I was currently lying down on my bed staring blankly up at my ceiling and asking myself why that simple, off-hand question was niggling away at me. I knew that Edward hadn't sent it with the intention of having me question myself for five whole hours, but that's what I had been doing. Instead of being extremely pleased with myself about having gotten a part in Emmett's new film, I was shut up inside wondering just who the hell I actually was.

It was ridiculous really; I _knew_ who I was. I've never been one of those insecure teenage girls who didn't know what they wanted and who they wanted to be; I was always just..._me_. Yet, here I was, 18 years old and confused as hell about what was going on in my life. Lately I had been questioning a lot more of my decisions and the choices I made regarding my life, asking myself whether I would still take the same path. I had always thought that I would; that despite the sacrifices I had undoubtedly made and the experiences I had chosen to forego, I wouldn't change the way my life had turned out for anything, but lying here right at this moment, I wasn't too sure that was the case anymore. The only thing was I didn't quite know what it was I was now so...dissatisfied with. There wasn't anything specific that I could pick out and say I was unhappy with because I wasn't unhappy at all. I loved my life and the people in it...but somehow it no longer seemed to be enough.

The message seemed to be implying that I hadn't spent any time trying to figure out who I really was, that I was just living from one movie role to the next and trying to find someone else to be. Maybe I was driving myself crazy with this train of thought, but I couldn't stop pursuing this path. Did I really work all the time because I liked work or because I didn't know what else to do? Had my life become nothing more than bits of time between movies? I had never questioned why I was such a workaholic before, never really felt the need to; I loved acting and it was only natural that I would want to do as much of it as I possibly could. Now, I was finding it rather odd not only that I had never asked myself why I worked all the time, but also found it strange that I did work all the time. My head was actually now hurting from all the circles that I was talking myself around. I wanted to scream at myself and also scream at Edward – how _dare_ he make me think like this about my own life that had previously been uncomplicated and perfectly fine?

I groaned and flipped over to my side to stare at the wall instead of the ceiling. I was frustrated with myself for not being able to stop thinking about this. The rest of my conversation with Edward was unimportant, idle chatter. On the plus side, there was no awkwardness underlying our text messages. I had decided to just pretend as if I hadn't become extremely weird on the phone to him yesterday night and he seemed to be playing along. That, or he really hadn't noticed the change in tone, which I doubted very much; Edward was a pretty observant guy, much to my extreme annoyance at times. I had sensed that Edward was a little reluctant to tell me about London – or specifically what he was doing there – but I didn't press the issue because I didn't have the right to and he obviously didn't want me to know in the first place. I was more than curious though – people didn't just fly half way round the world on a whim when they had commitments at home.

I rolled over again and received a slight shock when I saw the time displayed in neon green lights on my bedside table. Jake was going to be picking me up to go to dinner in little more than an hour and I hadn't even showered yet, preferring to waste my entire afternoon looking for answers on my blank ceiling. I had decided that I was going to finally going to tell Jake that I didn't want to move in with him and explain my very rational reasoning. I wasn't entirely confident that he would take it too well, but after months of uncertainty and half-answers from me, surely he would just appreciate the honesty. Perhaps then we could get our relationship back to the way it was before he had asked me to move in with him. I wanted that back, especially since I seemed to be questioning everything else about my life; the one thing I had been more than 100% sure of for four years now was Jacob and I didn't want that to change any time soon, if ever.

He arrived exactly on time, calling my name as he let himself into my apartment. I was still trying to make my hair look like I'd at least tried to comb it through, but I was fighting a losing battle this evening – my normally wavy hair seemed to have gone crazy. Jake's face appeared from behind the light blue rectangle of my bedroom door and he smiled brightly before letting out a low whistle when he saw me. I just rolled my eyes because he pretty much always did that when he caught me getting dressed – even if I was wearing my oldest pair of sweats and piling my hair on top of my head after not washing it for a couple of days.

"Hey," I greeted. "I'll be ready in a second; I just have to do something with my hair."

Jake stepped fully into the bedroom and stood just to the side of me. "Nonsense," he argued. "You look perfect just like that."

I laughed. "I think you may be bias Jacob Black."

"Maybe," he shrugged. "But then again I bet any guy seeing you would say exactly the same thing."

I rolled my eyes at him – my standard reply when he started to give me compliments that made me a little uncomfortable – and scooped my hair into a quick, messy bun hoping that it looked half-way fashionable instead of just rushed. Normally I wouldn't even care about doing my hair, but Jake and I were going to a pretty nice restaurant tonight because we hadn't been out in what felt like forever, even before he had to go on location. I guess we had just gotten lazy and comfortable in our routine of staying in and away from the rest of the world. God, that sounded so incredibly anti-social, but it wasn't really like that. I guess it was just something that happened when you had been in a relationship with someone for a long time – you went out much less and kind of just settled into your own environment. Still, as nice as my couch and takeout food was, I did feel the need to go out and talk somewhere neutral, so as not to give anyone hoe advantage. Jeez, I sounded like I was preparing for a war of some kind instead of a rational discussion between two adults. I had built this up in my head far too much, what with feeling guilty about putting him off for several months and then for our argument yesterday. I was sure it wouldn't be nearly as bad or dramatic as I was making it out to be.

"I'm ready," I said as I grabbed the small bag that held my purse, phone and keys. "Do you want me to drive?"

Jake let out a loud laugh as he followed me out of the apartment. "Not on your life," he answered. "I don't think the restaurant would let us in if they saw us arrive in that beast."

My mouth dropped open and I shoved him playfully. "I can't believe you just insulted my truck!" I exclaimed, indignant about his jibe against my innocent automobile. "That truck has served me extremely well and very loyally for the past two years, thank you very much."

Jacob shook his head and continued laughing instead of replying to my chastisement at his insults against my baby. My truck may not have been new and shiny, but it was strong, reliable and it would still be around when all those shiny new Volvo's phased out of popular culture. I had bought it in Canada where I was filming just after I passed my test and I actually drove the thing down from British Columbia to LA without it breaking down once. It had not only stood the test of time, but distance and the only way I would ever get rid of it was if it actually died on me...a very sad thought that I didn't even want to consider.

The restaurant was just outside of downtown LA because I absolutely hated going to the well-known eateries in this town where you couldn't get in or out without having to meander your way through a mass of paparazzi first. It always both amused and disgusted me when celebrities complained about having their personal lives all over the media and then purposely go out to dinner at the current trendy restaurant, or come stumbling out of the hottest new club. Obviously it was all a lie; they both wanted and needed the attention to validate their increasingly large egos, but they still wanted the right to complain about it. However, neither Jake nor I was very big into whoring our lives for other people to observe and comment on – it was hard enough to be in a relationship in this business without having the added pressure of millions of people following you and having their opinions on your personal relationships. This restaurant was a pretty small, intimate eatery that had been around for going on forty years. It was one of my favourite restaurants in the city and it certainly did the best lemon chicken.

Jake seemed to still be in an apologetic mood, which was making me squirm in my seat a little bit. He really needed to stop apologising to me – once was enough – more than enough in fact and I told him just that.

"I just wanted you to know that I felt like a huge prick when I just stormed out like that," Jake explained, picking up the hand I had resting on the table at the side of my plate. "I didn't mean to lose my cool and I meant what I said before; I'll wait however long it takes you to make your decision."

Ah, there it was, an opening in the conversation for me to tell him that the decision had already been made on my part – had been made for several months in fact. I took a deep breath before I started to speak. "I..." I cleared my throat and took my hand from his so that I could fiddle with the cutlery instead. "I already have an answer Jake," I told him, my eyes dropping to look at what my hands were doing. My body language was screaming at him that he was going to be receiving news he didn't want to hear and I wasn't surprised when he didn't speak for a few moments. Still, I couldn't look at him.

"It's a no isn't it?" he asked quietly, his voice laced with resignation.

I nodded before finally lifting my head to look him in the eyes and I cringed at the anger and hurt that I saw there – god I was a bitch. "I...it doesn't mean I don't love you," I hurried to explain. "I do love you. It's just that I'm not ready to move in with you. I'm not ready to move out of my parent's home."

Jake shook his head. "Has the answer always been no?" he asked.

I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn't need to because one look at my guilty expression told him everything that he needed to know and he let out an angry breath.

"Jesus Bella!" he exclaimed, his voice powered with anger now. "If you never wanted to move in with me in the first place why the hell didn't you just say?" I opened my mouth to speak, but Jake beat me to it. "You basically just let me have false hope for five months when you never had the intention of even thinking about it."

"I did think about it," I argued back, getting pissed off right now. Okay, I could have told him sooner, but he had absolutely no right to shout at me like he was doing now, as if chastising a kid. "I thought about it and I decided that I didn't want to do it yet."

"And you waited for five months to tell me why?" he demanded, his face going red from his vexation.

"Because I didn't want to hurt you, you asshole!" I seethed. "I love you and I didn't want you to question that, which is exactly what you're doing right now. I'm just not ready for this Jake. I'm only 18."

He took a deep breath and took a long sip of his drink, looking at anywhere but at me. I knew he was trying to calm himself down so that people wouldn't start staring at us – the couple that were having a domestic in the middle of a restaurant; I had noticed a few wary sideways glances already from the tables closest to us. "Maybe that's the problem Bella," he said finally, his voice quieter than it had been since the beginning of this conversation.

My mouth dropped open and my heart skipped a beat. What the hell was he trying to imply? That I was suddenly too young to be in this relationship with him now? Just because I wouldn't move in with him right at this very moment. Was he being fucking serious? I couldn't even formulate a response to this because my mouth wouldn't move in order to form words and my head was still trying to figure out exactly what his words were supposed to mean anyway.

Jake let out a breath, shook his head and looked at me. "Look, let's just finish dinner and go home," he suggested. "We can talk about this tomorrow when we've both calmed down a little and slept on it."

I nodded my head, unable to do anything else. I didn't fully understand what the hell had just happened and how a simple dinner to talk things through could have resulted in an argument that left me wondering if my relationship was actually going to still be in tact tomorrow morning. There had never been a point in mine and Jake's relationship where I thought we were close to breaking point, but right at this very moment, I was extremely scared that this was indeed where we were headed. I tried to eat the rest of my meal, but the chicken felt dry and got stuck in my throat so that I had to force myself to actually swallow it. I only took another two bites before I gave up and just resorted to pushing the pieces of food around my plate instead, waiting for Jake to finish his meal so we could pay and just get the hell out of here. For some reason I thought that if we got out of the restaurant we could just forget the argument happened at all and we could go back to how we were at the beginning of the evening.

The drive home had never felt so long and there had never been a silence between Jacob and I had never been so oppressive. I felt a little sick at the tension in the air, but I couldn't say anything to break the silence because I was afraid of making everything worse – though how they could get worse was beyond me at this point. Jacob dropped me off, but didn't come in when I held the door open for him.

"Jake?" I asked, the simple word loaded with so many questions. I wanted to ask him what this meant, what he wanted to do, what I could do to fix this.

He smiled down at me, his eyes sad and confused. "It's okay Bells," he said, kissing me softly on the cheek. "I just need to think some things through by myself okay? I'll be by tomorrow."

I nodded my head and felt tears prick behind my eyes; I hadn't exactly pictured that this would turn out all sunshine and rainbows, but neither had I thought it would end with the feeling that my three year relationship with my boyfriend was hanging on a string over a two-hundred foot cliff. As I watched his back get further away from me and closer to his car all I could think was _oh fuck!_

*

Jacob was on his way over to 'talk things through'. He had sent me a text message at seven o'clock this morning asking whether or not I was awake and if he could come over. I had sent him a message back instantly because I hadn't been asleep and I was more than ready to just get this mess sorted out so we could both get back to our everyday lives and our functional relationship. I had spent the entire night tossing and turning in my bed and the leaping up and walking around my apartment. I blamed myself for the mess that was last night because I could have told Jake about my decision months ago when I made it – in fact I _should_ have told him instead of letting it drag on and letting him believe that I would eventually give him the answer that he wanted. Well, I would probably eventually move in with Jacob, but it wouldn't be right now or within the next year – it would be when I felt ready to make the transition. I just hoped that he would still be around when I finally was prepared to take that step.

I spent the time waiting for Jake to arrive making us both a cup of coffee and some toast. I would have cooked French toast – his favourite – but I didn't exactly make edible French toast. In fact, the last time that I had made Jacob his favourite breakfast, he spent the next day with his head in constantly close proximity with the bathroom porcelain. I sat down on one of the stools at the kitchen counter and listened for any sound of his arrival. Finally, I heard a car door slam close and footsteps coming up the stairs leading up to my apartment getting louder a few moments later. My breathing quickened in anticipation and I noticed that my heart rate was markedly increased from what it normally was. Was I nervous? Hell yes. It seemed as if this talk had the power to change my life as I knew it.

Jake let himself in once more – a good sign surely – and sat down next to me as soon as he saw me. I placed the coffee that I had made in front of him before looking up at him, trying to convey the fact that I was sorry and that I loved him through my eyes and my simple gesture of making him coffee. He gave me a tight smile and took a sip, making me feel instantly better – he had accepted the figurative olive branch. I turned to look at my own coffee, trying to ascertain whether or not I should speak first or he should. Was there correct etiquette for this sort of thing?

"I'm sorry about last night," he started after a few moments. I turned my head to look at him, surprised that words of apology were the first out of his mouth – I hadn't expected that at all.

"Huh?" was all I could come up with in response. Eloquence was obviously out the window when I'd had less than eight hours sleep total the past two nights.

Jake smiled wider. "The comment about your age," he explained. "I'm apologising for that because I should never have said that – I didn't even mean it. I was just...I was so hurt Bella."

I took his hand in mine. "Look Jake, I know you wanted us to move in together now and I'm saying no, but that doesn't mean we won't take that step in the future, or I don't love you now." I was speaking very quickly in the attempt to say everything I wanted to him before he interrupted me. I needed him to understand that I did love him and this negative answer wouldn't exclude a positive one in the future, when we were both ready.

He nodded his head and squeezed my hand. "I know that Bells," he said calmly, much to my surprise. "I was hurt by the fact that you said no, but to be honest, I was more hurt by the fact that you didn't tell me about it right away. I was pissed that you let me get my hopes up and start making plans when all of that time you knew it wasn't going to happen."

I opened my mouth to speak, to explain that I really had only kept it from him for so long because I didn't want to hurt him. Obviously it had turned out to be a completely fucked up plan, but I had perfectly good intentions. It now seemed as if the old adage of the road to hell being paved with good intentions was, in fact, true. However, before I could get any words of explanation and apology to leave my mouth, Jacob held up his hand to stop me talking.

"I know that you only did that because you thought you were sparing my feelings, but it really cut deep that you didn't trust our relationship enough, our friendship enough, to just tell me straight away Bella."

He played the friendship card – of course he would; it was the one thing that could possibly make me feel worse than I did before and it had worked spectacularly. I now didn't even feel worthy enough to clean up dog shit from his shoe. Saying that I didn't believe in the strength of our relationship enough to tell him the truth from the beginning was one thing, but even implying that I didn't regard our friendship highly enough to tell him was not only driving the knife in deeper, but then pouring acid into the wound. I was caught between the emotions of guilt and anger.

"That's not fair Jacob," I told him, my voice hard. "I get that you're mad and hurt, but that's not an excuse for you to question what our friendship means to me."

He nodded his head and took my hand in both of his, holding them on his lap. "I know and that's not really what I'm getting at," he assured me. "I was just trying to explain what went through my head at the restaurant last night." I nodded in understanding and as a sign for him to continue explaining. "Anyway, I thought about it some more when I went home and I realised that part of the reason that you didn't feel like you could tell me straight away was the fact that I have been...well, let's just say a little insistent, on the two of us moving in together. I accept that it was partly my fault that you didn't feel comfortable telling me right away and I'm sorry for that."

Now _this_ guy, this sweet, caring person in front of me was the boyfriend that I had been missing for a while. It seemed as if Jacob was back and I couldn't be more pleased with this. I grasped one of the hands that he was holding onto mine with and pulled him closer to me to kiss his lips briefly and pull him into a hug.

"I love you Bells," he whispered into my ear. "I love you and if you're not ready to take the next step then I'll wait until you are. Just make sure I'm the first to know yeah?"

I laughed in sweet relief and nodded, kissing him again, but deeper this time. I was so happy that Jacob hadn't chosen to break up with me like I had feared last night and earlier this morning. I really couldn't imagine my life without Jacob in it; he had been such a big part of it for so long. I also felt a wave of pure relief at the fact that in the midst of me questioning who I was and all the decisions I had made that led to my life now, the one thing I could always count on was Jacob. Many people craved excitement and constant uncertainty, but in a world of falsehood and lies, the one thing I knew was true was that this man in my arms was always going to be there for me, never changing.

**EPOV**

_Mentally incapacitated?! _They wanted to play the insanity card. They wanted to make it seem as if the sick bastard hadn't known exactly what he was doing for over fifteen years. I wanted to go right up to that smug barrister of his and lay my right fist in his face. I couldn't believe it. I honestly thought I had stepped into an alternate universe where everyone in the courtroom were all just actors playing a role in some sick practical joke. However, I knew that it was real when Rosalie ran out of the courtroom mere seconds after that particular argument was presented. I snapped out of my stupor to follow her, catching up with her just outside the building where she promptly vomited into a nearby trash can. I walked up to her and attempted to rub her back in some sort of comforting gesture, but Rosalie shook her head and waved me off; she was obviously not comfortable having me witness this weak moment. I backed away slightly, but didn't let her out of my sight. I didn't care whether Rosalie wanted me here or not, she _needed_ me to be here. When she finished puking everything in her stomach – which wasn't all that much because she had barely eaten the past few days – she slumped down onto the floor and put her head in her hands.

I took this as my permission to now go up to her and indeed when I sat down next to her, putting my arms around her, she didn't move away. Instead, she put her head on my shoulder and cried. No matter how many times I had heard Rosalie cry in the course of these past few days I still couldn't get used to it and nor was I ever going to get past the feeling of complete uselessness it rendered me with. Rose continued to sob for what felt like hours, but what was probably only a few minutes. When she stopped, her breathing was still ragged, difficult and short. I stroked her hair in a gesture that I knew comforted her because I had used it to get her to fall asleep for the past few nights.

"I can't believe they're trying to keep that bastard out of prison," she said vehemently, hatred dripping from every word she spoke. "I don't know how those people can sit there and defend that sick pervert when every single one of them knows what he did."

I didn't say anything – couldn't say anything – but I got the feeling that Rosalie didn't need my input, she just needed to let all of these thoughts out. I didn't understand it either because although the man obviously had some psychological problems, it didn't mean that he didn't know exactly what he was doing. He had not only run a multi-million dollar company in the time frame of his crimes, but he also managed to hide his sick activities from the world around him. I couldn't comprehend how the snakes on the defence could possibly try and get this pervert off from a sentence that was already less than he deserved. Didn't these people have daughters or sisters or nieces that they wanted to protect from monsters like Royce King? Did that no longer matter in the face of a 7 figure salary? I couldn't wrap my mind around it and I was fucking thankful that I wasn't depraved and immoral enough to be able to.

"This is so unfair Ed," Rosalie continued. "I wait five years for him to be exposed as the pervert he is and now they're trying to make it seem like he didn't know exactly what he was doing. They're trying to tell me that he didn't plan every single thing he did to me, to the other girls? How? How can they possibly do this Ed?"

The tears started to flow once more, but this time it was a mixture of anger and confusion that fuelled them. If I thought that the trial was taking such a huge toll on Rose before, it was nothing compared to the effect today would have on her. She thought she was coming here to finally lay the ghosts to rest, to look evil in the eyes and know that she'd beaten it. Instead, she had come back to find that people were still trying to excuse the actions of the man that had robbed her of her childhood and ruined her entire life. There was nothing to be said, no words of comfort that could ever be enough for her or for the situation, so I didn't even attempt to say anything. I couldn't tell her that it would be okay and that they would laugh those claims out of court because life wasn't fair and evil men got let off scot free all the time if they had money to pay for it. Rosalie knew better than anyone how harsh reality could be and she wouldn't appreciate false reassurances – she never had.

We sat there in silence for about thirty minutes just looking out at the street before us and trying not to think about the trial still going on behind us, but finding nothing else that would take our thoughts too far from it. No matter what else I tried to keep my mind occupied with I kept coming back to the night that I found out about Rosalie's past. I could still hear the way she told me about it, could still see the way her face looked when she recounted the details of her nightmare of a life to me. There were no gory details of course – neither of us could have handled that – but it was enough to leave me horrified anyway and for a long time I couldn't close my eyes without picturing her face as she told me about it.

"_What happened to you Rosalie?" I asked softly, looking at her fully over the fire that we had started a couple of hours ago. _

_It was ten o'clock at night and everyone else that we had come to the beach with had left in search of more exciting night life. It had been just the two of us for about an hour now and Rosalie had just mentioned something alluding to her past before clamming up and getting up to leave. She had done this several times within the past three and a half months that I had known her. We had travelled through France and Spain together and now here in Portugal, I was determined to find out the truth about what exactly it was she was so determined to hide, but too hurt by to not be affected by it. _

"_It's none of your business Edward," she told me, her voice cold and her face hard. She got up and started walking away._

"_No," I admitted. I walked quickly behind her, trying to catch up. "No, it's not any of my business but we're friends Rose and you're hurting about something. I just want to help."_

_She turned around, her eyes blazing with anger. "What makes you think you can help Edward? How very egotistical of you to think that you can solve this damsel in distress's problems." She turned again and started walking away from me faster so that I had to take longer strides to keep up._

_Rosalie was pissed, very, very pissed and in my opinion her anger was complete disproportionate to what I had done – which was, at the end of the day, just ask a question. I found myself getting a little defensive because she had no right to be reprimanding me like this when all I wanted to do was find out why my friend was so upset. "Maybe you should just try letting people at least attempt Rose, instead of just telling them to fuck off."_

_Rosalie stopped and turned around, this time coming right at me. She looked like she wanted to rip me limb from limb. "Have you ever thought that maybe there are some things that you can't make better? That no one can make better?" She let out a harsh laugh that didn't sound right coming from her mouth at all. "You really do have a knight in shining armour complex don't you Ed? First your Mom and now me." Now it was my turn for my eyes to burn with fury. I can't believe she would bring that up. "I thought you would have learned from that experience that there were just some things you can't fix."_

_I didn't fail to notice the cruel mockery to her tone, but I wasn't so far gone in my anger towards who she was being right now not to notice the bitter sadness underlying her cutting words. Apart from that undercurrent when she spoke, absolutely nothing else gave me any hint that Rosalie, the girl that was undoubtedly now my closest companion, wasn't just some bitch who delighted in making people trust her and then using their worst fears and insecurities against them. However, because she hadn't been able to hide the tremble of feeling in her voice, my vision began to clear of the red-tinge that it had been clouded by. I was ready to really lay into her after the comment about my mother because she had been the only person apart from Carlisle that I had told that story to; I thought I could trust her. Right now, I needed Rosalie to know that she could trust me, so as much as I wanted to yell and scream and walk away from her to stop her from laying out my every fear right here, I didn't. Perhaps, if her lashing out at me in the worst possible way would get her to open up to me finally, it would be worth it and our friendship would survive this night._

_I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself. It didn't work the first time, so I did it again and again until finally it didn't feel like I'd just run a marathon. I was surprised that Rosalie was actually still in front of me instead of halfway down the beach. "I'm not saying that I'll be able to solve your problems Rose," I told her keeping my voice steady. "I'm just saying that everyone has baggage and everyone's past is always weighing them down. It's only when you admit it that you start to be free from it."_

_I kept my eyes on her face, willing her to believe me and daring her to contradict me, but she looked away towards the black ocean that rushed steadily to and from the sand in a hypnotic rhythm. She didn't say anything, merely stood there looking out into the black expanse, but I don't think that's what she was seeing because Rosalie looked anything but peaceful. Instead, she looked as if she was fighting a war within herself and I had to wonder what it was that she was so reluctant to tell me – what had happened to this strong, stubborn woman in front of me? I didn't move from where I stood watching her and waiting for her to give me a clue on where we were supposed to go from here. _

_She took a deep breath before speaking again, her voice flat and lifeless in a way that I'd never heard before – a way that chilled me even though the night air surrounding us was balmy. "About six months before we met," she started, her eyes never leaving the far-off horizon that neither of us could really see in the darkness. "I lost...I had a miscarriage."_

_I gasped in surprise because this was not the story I was expecting her to tell. Rose was only 18 – a few months older than I was and even though it wasn't exactly rare for people our age to be parents, I still hadn't expected those exact words to come from her mouth. Before I could tell her how sorry I was, she carried on speaking, her voice still devoid of emotion. _

"_I didn't even know I was pregnant," she confessed. "My Mum found me passed out and bleeding on the bathroom floor of our house in Brighton. She called the ambulance and I was rushed to hospital. I don't remember any of this of course," she explained. "I was told later when I came round. At first, I couldn't work out why my Mom was so damn angry at me – I hadn't done anything wrong for a while – then the doctor told me what had happened, about the...about the baby. From then on, my life as I knew it was over." Her voice broke on the last few words and she had to stop speaking, but there were no tears running down her cheeks – her expression was as void as her tone._

_I didn't really understand what she meant by her last statement, but I could hazard a guess. I had met Rosalie's parents only once when she went back to her Brighton home to pack a back in order to leave with me. They had tried to stop her, but weirdly not because they would miss her, or they thought it was dangerous. Instead, they had told her that she was once again dragging their name through the mud and told her to stop being so dramatic. I stood there completely aghast at the way they were treating their daughter, but Rosalie didn't even seem surprised; she actually looked resigned, as if it was exactly what she had been expecting. When I asked her about their argument, all she had said was that she and her parents didn't get on – they lived by a different set of rules, she had told me._

_I didn't get to ask what she actually meant by her statement because she carried on without needing any sign that I was even listening. "My Mum was beyond furious. She couldn't believe that I would ever embarrass the family like this. She told me she taught me better than to get caught screwing around like I had done. She said she was disgusted by me – couldn't bear to look at her slut of a daughter." The venom in her voice when she said those words shocked me just as much as the words themselves. It was a sad thing to realise that I could fully imagine Rosalie's mother saying those things to her even though I didn't know the woman._

"_If I thought she was pissed, my Dad was on a different level. He completely flew off the handle when she told him – so much so that at one point, I thought he was actually going to back hand me. I should have known better really – the rich don't like to leave visible proof of what goes on behind closed doors. Whatever would the common folk think?"_

_Rosalie only stopped talking when she needed to take a breath, or when she found something particularly hard to recount. I think that now she was talking about it, she was finding it cathartic – purging her demons, if you will. "He hounded me about the father. He screamed and screamed at me to tell him who was the dirty bastard that I'd let crawl in between my legs. I...I was still so fucking confused from the drugs at the hospital. I didn't know what was happening. I just wanted him to stop shouting. I wanted to go to bed and just forget that my life was a nightmare. Before I could stop myself from saying it, I told him. I told him who it was that had gotten me pregnant – Royce King."_

_She stopped again and this time her eyes glistened with unshed tears and I sensed that this was the part of the story that had actually caused her the most pain. Yes, she had been hurting for the baby that she lost, for the way that her parents had treated her when they found out, but here was the source of Rosalie's greatest demons and I had a feeling I was really going to regret ever asking her to retell the horrors of her life. The name sounded familiar to me, but I couldn't place it – maybe I had met him once when I met the rest of Rosalie's friends; somehow I doubted that this was the case._

"_It was my Mum that actually slapped me – so hard that I blacked out. I woke up in my room some time later, not knowing how I'd gotten there or why my head felt like it was about to split. Our house-keeper came in about an hour later with water and some pain killers. I think my parents must have gone out. She told me to take the pills and to stop telling lies about Mr. King if I didn't want my Mum to go off on one again – my parents were always protective of their friends. Shame the same couldn't be said about their own daughter right?"_

_I knew what Rosalie's words were implying – I'd have to have been stupid not to, but I couldn't actually fully grasp them; couldn't or wouldn't. Either way my mind was reeling with information that it just didn't accept. I didn't know where Rosalie was going with her story, but I knew that I didn't want her to carry on. She was right – there were some things that couldn't be made better. Rosalie's past was nothing short of a nightmare and nothing anyone could do would make that better, would heal her wounds. _

_We both stood there in complete silence for what felt like a lifetime. Rosalie was lost in the horrors that had scarred her soul deeply and I was trying to fight off the awful thoughts that were occurring to me. Royce was a friend of her parents' – that had to mean that he was around their age, not the 17 that Rosalie had been when she had gotten pregnant with his child. That piece of information was bad enough, but I knew there was more to come and I suspected that I knew what it was. Rosalie turned to look at me after a while, tears streaming down her face now. It was the first time I had seen her cry – she didn't even shed a tear when her mother had torn into her as she was leaving. It was unsettling and I wanted to look away from her because I could see the heart-breaking truth behind her eyes – I wanted to be sick. She was asking me to ask her the question that I was trying to bury within my head. I didn't want to ask her because I didn't want confirmation. I didn't want her to tell me – selfish yes, but I couldn't help my instincts. Rosalie wanted to complete her story – __**needed**__ – to finish, but she wouldn't say it unless I asked her outright. _

_I had asked her to start this – pushed her even – and now here I wanted to take it all back because I knew I couldn't take it when she finally told me. I wasn't naive by any stretch of the imagination – I had seen some awful things in my life, experienced loss and hopelessness, but I hadn't even come close to what Rosalie had gone through. I didn't know if I was even strong enough to hear about it; I couldn't imagine how she had actually __**lived**__ through it. I took a deep breath, my eyes never leaving hers and trying to find some strength from her to do this. She needed this and I was her friend; this was the only way that I could make it a minute fraction more bearable for her – she needed to share this with someone that would take her side, someone that would believe her._

"_What did he do to you Rosalie?" I asked quietly, my voice trembling. "How old were you when Royce King first raped you?"_

_The sob that she let out was like a stab in the heart, but there was nothing that could have prepared me for the physical blow that her answer caused. "Thirteen," she sobbed out. "I was thirteen." She collapsed into my arms so quickly that I only just had time to catch her before we both fell to the sand with the weight of her admission; with the weight of the past that she had been trying to escape, but would always carry around._

*

Rosalie locked herself up in her room that night, refusing to let me in no matter how much I begged and knocked and tried to reason with her. I was worried that she would do something incredibly stupid – experience had taught me not to leave slightly unstable people in a room by themselves. I had called Carlisle to ask him what I was supposed to do because I had run out of ideas short of breaking down her door – which, admittedly I had tried to do until I realised that heavy oak doors did not give way to a 22 year-old man's shoulder too easily. Carlisle had no other ideas himself, at least not ones I could accept easily. He told me that I just had to let her be, to leave her alone to try and find a way to cope with this.

"She's carried this burden around with her for a huge part of her life Edward," Carlisle told me. "She handled it by herself then and that's the best way she knows how to deal with this – maybe the only way."

I knew that what my brother was saying made sense, but the idea that Rosalie was in there suffering again because of that bastard was driving me insane. I had never been one for violence, wasn't a supporter of capital punishment, but I would give anything right about now to see Royce King burn in hell. The hatred I felt for him seemed to burn from within me so strong and so hotly that I didn't know how I didn't combust – I couldn't even imagine what Rosalie must have been feeling like on the other side of the door.

I must have fallen asleep in the chair that I had dragged from my own room to Rosalie's door because one minute I was staring worriedly at the still-closed door and the next, I was looking up at the bemused face of my best friend. I stood up quickly and hugged her, relieved that she hadn't tried to kill herself last night. I knew that Rosalie was made of strong stuff, but there had to be a breaking point in everyone and I really thought that last night was it for her. I guess I was just a little...over-cautious about even the slightest possibility that someone might take their own life. I didn't want to miss any little sign or hint that they may do it – probably why I had camped outside of Rosalie's door all night even though I knew she wasn't going to open it.

"Tell me you didn't actually sleep in that chair outside my door all night like some sort of guard Edward," she said, holding out a hand so that I could pull myself up. I was a little stiff from the less than optimum sleeping position I had been in for the last six hours at least, so I was grateful for the assistance.

"I was worried about you," I answered back, stretching out my legs and arms one by one and hearing them click when I knew they shouldn't be making those noises. Sleeping in a straight-backed wooden chair was really, really not comfortable. "How are you feeling?"

Rosalie had started to go downstairs, but stopped at the top of the stairs to look at me when she heard my question. "Like shit," she told me honestly. "Then again I've pretty much been feeling like this since we got here, so I should be used to it by now."

Typical Rosalie – didn't want to accept the fact that she had every right to feel like she was feeling, probably worse. I think somewhere in her head, she thought that she wouldn't be affected by this as much as she was being. I think she'd actually fooled herself into thinking that by running to the other side of the world and living a life where no one knew of this past, it hadn't happened. "Rose," I started, but she held up her hand and stopped me before I could go any further.

"I know," she said, her voice softening. "Look, there's somewhere I need to go this morning. Are you going to be okay amusing yourself for a couple of hours?"

I raised my eyebrows at her in question, but she didn't volunteer any more information about where exactly she needed to be. "Are you sure you're going to be okay by yourself? Yesterday was pretty...well, it was fucking awful." There was no sugar-coating it, especially not to the woman for whom it was infinitely worse.

She nodded. "It's something I have to do," she told me, forcing a tight smile to cross her face so that she could reassure me that she wouldn't have a nervous breakdown if I let her out on her own. "I'll be back before 2 and then I thought we could give the trial a break today and just hang out."

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion, but Rosalie just shrugged and started walking down the stairs again and away from me so that I couldn't ask why exactly we weren't going to be at the trial. It was the last day of witnesses and testimonies; tomorrow the barristers would give their closing arguments and the jury would go out and deliberate before coming back in within two days to give the verdict. Obviously Rose and I were going to be staying until they read out to us that Royce King was going to spend the rest of his life rotting in prison where he belonged. Hopefully someone in there would show him exactly what it felt like to be powerless, afraid and ashamed of yourself and he could feel a fraction of what he'd made Rose and several other girls feel.

I heard Rosalie leave before I went into my room to have a shower. Looking out of the window, I was surprised to find that the sun was actually out and the English streets below me were bathed in the warm glow of it. I decided that I was going to spend some time in Hyde Park today whilst Rosalie was out running the errand that she didn't want me to know any details of. I was worried about her, but I also knew that I couldn't have changed her mind about leaving me behind if she really didn't want me to go – not only was Rosalie independent, but also frustratingly stubborn. I hoped that whatever she was doing today would at least make it easier for her to sit in court for the next three days after yesterday's fiasco.

Taking the Tube is an experience that must be had when in London, just like the Subway was a must for all New York tourists; it really helped you to understand how people lived their lives here every day. When I first decided to brave this city's underground transport system, I got lost three times, ending up basically at every single side of the city that I didn't want to be at before finally finding the right stop. Some people say that all train systems pretty much work the same way – I say their talking shit. Between the Metro in Paris, the Subway in New York and the Underground in London, the latter was by far the more complicated system, and one of those had signs in French for crying out loud. There was also the fact that people on the Tube were not nice. Whilst it's perfectly true that most of the travellers of the Metro and the Subway were also rude and irritable, one had expected that owing to the fact that people on the streets above the trains were also rude and irritable. However, something happened to the usually polite English people once they descended below the paved streets and they became just as brash and offensive as their European and American counterparts. Maybe it was just the way the underground transport system worked the world over – you had to be tough and unapproachable so you didn't get stuck with the crazy man who gets off at your stop and tries to follow you to work, or worse yet, home.

I was a little rusty in getting the Tube and ended up getting the Central line when I had been aiming for the Piccadilly line. Luckily, both lines had several stations that got me close enough to the park so that I could just walk from where I ended up. Although the circumstances to my being here again were anything but pleasant, I couldn't help admire London as I walked its streets basking in the seldom seen sunshine. It was an amazing city; historic, but modern; bustling yet quaint. I had spent a good four weeks here when I was in England and it truly did have a different lifestyle and pace to the rest of the country. In a lot of ways it reminded me of New York, but older and more refined – kind of like the older brother. Hyde Park itself reminded me of Central Park, though Rosalie absolutely refused to say it in that order, insisting that the latter should remind me of the former because it was built much later. I guess she had a point.

I wondered whether Rosalie was actually doing the same thing right now – taking time out from the realities of life just to appreciate the fact that something else existed outside of the nightmare that she kept having to relive. It was nice to just be able to see something other than sorrow and misery, nice to be reminded that life wasn't always a horrible, complicated mess – just sometimes. I hoped that Rose was somewhere finding her eye within the storm because tomorrow would be a whole other day with yet more emotional beatings. Goodness only knows how she hasn't yet contacted someone to get professional help – I certainly wouldn't blame her for it.

I walked around the boating lake of the park, watching serious rowers and less serious tourists paddle around in the water and being very careful not to fall in; the murky brown colour of the water wasn't just there to dissuade people from jumping in – it really was dirty. I had gone out on the water the previous time I was here – with Rosalie's encouragement – and she spent the best part of an hour trying to make sure that I actually ended up in the filthy liquid. She had taken me here initially to show me Speaker's Corner because I'd been bugging her about it since she told me she'd show me around London. In the end both of us came back to the edge as dry as when we left it, but that was only because I promised her that if I fell in, I'd overturn the boat so that she'd fall in after me. After that particular threat, the idea of me being the in water wasn't as appealing to her anymore. I smiled at the memory, wanting more than anything for that carefree scene to be playing out right now.

I felt my pocket vibrate and quickly took out my phone immediately thinking that it was going to be Rosalie. In fact, I was so sure that it was from Rose that I didn't look at the name at the beginning of the message and instead just scrolled down to read the main body of the text.

_Breathing is essential, I give you that and admittedly your message confused the hell out of me. However, I took a breath and found new focus. Thanks, though I doubt you know what I'm thanking you for._

I was extremely confused as to what Rosalie actually meant by this message until I saw that the message was actually from Bella. Still the message made little sense and I had to flick over the messages that we'd exchanged yesterday to actually understand what she was referring to. When I found the message I had sent her in regard to her working back-to-back projects, all the puzzle pieces finally clicked into place and the words actually meant something now. I was a little surprised that she had brought it up a day later, when during the conversation yesterday she hadn't replied to what I'd said at all and instead just talked more about Emmett and asked me about London. I couldn't imagine that she had spent all day yesterday and then today thinking about what I'd said when really it was more a reflection of my own view on taking role after role without a break in between.

_How profound. I'm almost ashamed to admit that my own thoughts on the matter were less so. I didn't think that you would need to find new focus – in my opinion you have plenty. Please give us lesser mortals a slim chance of keeping up with you._

It was completely true. For someone so young, Bella was extremely sure of herself and who she wanted to be. I think it was a huge part of why I was so intimidated by her when we first met – why I was still a little taken aback by her sometimes even though we were friends now. She had the same sort of single-mindedness that both Carlisle and Rosalie had, but I sorely lacked. Yet, she was still so young, still so innocent and inexperienced – it was a very odd combination of traits. I felt a little guilty at having made her question herself for even a second because she really didn't need to.

_Lesser mortals? I don't think so Mr. Cullen. You've travelled the world to search for yourself – even if you are a mere mortal, you certainly aren't less._

If she had been in front of me saying that, I would have probably been open-mouthed in shock before seeing the teasing look in her face and ducking my head in embarrassment. There was something completely disarming about Bella giving me a compliment – maybe because I got the feeling she didn't do it too often to too many people. Or maybe because I didn't think that someone as admittedly amazing as Bella was should be giving someone like me compliments. Yes, I had tried to find out who I was but at the end of the day I was still lost, still searching and sometimes I wondered if I would ever find the answers. Yet this 18-year old girl knew herself so well that she forced others around her to be more certain with their own minds.

I was trying to think of something to send back to Bella, or whether I needed to send anything back at all, when I looked up and noticed that my feet had led me to the Serpentine Bridge. I stopped walking a moment and looked to my right, marvelling at the sight before me. I was so caught up in the scene and in my own thoughts that I didn't notice anyone around me until someone knocked into me, sending me back several steps and almost making me fall flat on my butt. I was winded by the impact, but I was equally shocked by the small body that was pressing itself into mine so that she wouldn't fall over. It was a damn good thing that she was rather tiny because had she been any bigger, the both of us would have probably ended up on the ground in a very compromising position for two strangers to be in.

"Oh I'm so sorry," the woman said quickly, stepping away from me once she had regained her balance. She looked up so that I could see the apology in her eyes and I had to admit that I sort of did a double-take when I saw her; gloriously long, full wavy dark brown hair, deep-set dark brown eyes and full, red lips. "Are you okay?" Her English was accented – Portuguese maybe?

I nodded. "Don't worry about it," I told her smiling. "No damage done. We're both still on our feet."

She smiled back at me, making it very hard for me to fight back the grin that threatened to overwhelm my face. "Good thing too," she said in her throaty voice that sounded like she had a permanent cold. "Skirts and falling on the floor don't go very well together."

I couldn't help but look down at her bare legs when she mentioned them, noticing that they were tanned, smooth and very nicely shaped. She noticed me looking, but considering she had pointed me in that direction herself, I don't think she minded so much. When I looked back at her face, she had a knowing smile on her lips and started to appraise me much as I had done her when I first saw her.

"It's a good job you ran into someone that could break the fall then," I said, my voice becoming smoother than usual in what Rosalie called my 'pick-up voice'. "I'm Edward by the way." I held out my hand for her to shake.

She gave me another rather cheeky grin before enveloping my large hand in her two tiny ones. "Zafrina," she informed me. "I'm very pleased to meet you Edward."

* * *

**AN: Thank you for the reviews and thank you very much for reading. I hope everyone had a good long weekend - that was the reason for the slight delay in this post. **


	9. Chapter 9 Maternal Issues

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 9 – EPOV**

I felt like I was in the fucking Twilight Zone. That was the only explanation my stunned mind could come up with for this bizarre situation. I had been staring at Rosalie in disbelief for the past two minutes, my eyes wide with shock and my food completely forgotten before me. She had just told me exactly where she had spent the morning whilst I had been wandering around Hyde Park and even though I heard the words just fine, it took me a long while to process what she'd said. Now it was taking me even longer to think of something to say because she had actually just literally blown my mind – and not in a particularly positive way. Whilst I sat here trying to find words to express my feelings at this very moment – hell, trying to gauge what I was feeling in light of this news – Rosalie was sitting opposite me, her eyes firmly on her plate of spaghetti, studying it intently as she twirled the pasta with her fork.

"Are you insane?" I spluttered out after a couple more moments of opening and shutting my mouth. It wasn't the most appropriate or sensitive questions, but nor was it the least.

She looked up at me then and rolled her eyes. "I knew you'd react this way," she told me. "That's why I didn't tell you where I was going and that's why I didn't want you to come."

"I think anyone would react in exactly the same way Rose," I argued because surely the measure of insanity would be going to jail in order to visit the evil bastard that abused you for four years. Damn right I wouldn't have let her go. I would have probably tried to keep her locked up in her room like she had been last night.

"My shrink told me that it would do me good to see him," she informed me, once again knocking me sideways with her big revelations.

Hadn't I just been thinking that she should go and see someone that could help her cope with all the stress? It was something I thought she should do for the sake of her psychological and emotional well-being, but it wasn't exactly something I thought she would ever do. She had said once that just as much as Americans liked to share and show their feelings, the British liked to repress them and pretend that they didn't exist – especially those in the upper classes. Mental illness was definitely _not_ something that would go over well within society circles. She didn't entirely believe in the use of psychologists so for her to tell me that she had gone to see Royce King in jail on the advice of some therapist that I didn't even know she had really did blind-side me.

"You have a shrink?" I was going to work on starting to digest this slightly less confusing piece of information first then work my way up to the big stuff.

She nodded and shrugged in a very off-hand sort of way, as if she hadn't just gone against her entire belief-system by paying someone to listen to her talk about her feelings for an hour a week. The big tell-tale sign that she knew she was going back on her very outspoken views on psychotherapy was the fact that she wouldn't meet my eyes. Even when she looked up from her plate of, what was by now, cold spaghetti, she would look over my shoulder or just above my head, but never directly at me. After years of knowing her and years of living with her on and off, I could read Rosalie Hale like a book.

"You don't believe in shrinks," I reminded her, eyes never leaving her face so that I could will her to look at me.

"Well what do you know," she said in a voice dripping with sarcasm, "they do exist after all. In fact, this one takes a hundred dollars from my bank account each week – like an anti-tooth fairy." A good offence is the best defence; sarcastic Rosalie was very often a defensive Rosalie.

I rolled my eyes at her very thinly veiled attempt in distracting me from the questions I wanted to ask her. "When did you get a therapist Rose?"

"Haven't you and Carlisle both been telling me for years that I should get a therapist?" Answering a question with another one – she was using one evasive tactic after another and these were the easy questions I was trying to get answers for.

"And you've been telling us for just as long that the only way you'd go and see one is if the court finally ordered you to one after you'd beaten the crap out of us for bugging you about it."

She chuckled a little at this, but otherwise just shrugged again. If she honestly thought that I was going to stop asking her questions about this just because she was acting as if it was the most natural step in the world for her to have taken, she'd have to think again. It wasn't that I was upset she was seeing a therapist; it was just that she was acting oddly out of character and I wanted to know why. People didn't tend to change their beliefs without strong motivation to do so and I didn't think that Rosalie just woke up one day, decided that Carlisle and I had been right for four years and picked up a phone to call someone.

"Well, unless I blacked out and lost my memory, you haven't beaten us to within an inch of our lives and you weren't in court so..." I trailed off hoping by some miracle that she would actually just finish my sentence.

"So..." she repeated trailing off herself and I sighed in complete frustration. This was like pulling teeth – painful.

"Rose please," I begged now, my tone serious. "I just want to know what's changed."

She looked up at me then, her eyes studying me as if she was assessing whether or not she could tell me the truth behind her motivations. I was still the entire time, not wanting to do or say anything stupid that might sway her in the negative. When she took a deep breath and shook her head slightly in resignation, I knew that I'd done something right because she was going to tell me.

"It was after disastrous date number 254," she explained. I furrowed my brow at the number, wondering if she had actually kept count. "I basically stayed up the majority of the night wondering why the hell I couldn't just find a nice guy and be in a functioning relationship, you know? I mean I'm 23 for crying out loud – I should have at least had one semi-serious boyfriend by now."

I wanted to disagree with her because even though she was indeed 23, she had gone through some things in her past that would put anyone off men for life, never mind for just ten years. However when I started thinking about this, I realised that it wasn't exactly true that Rosalie had been put off men – she dated all the time, even slept with some of them.

"Anyway, I mulled it over for a couple of days and decided to just bite the bullet and go for it," she confessed. "I don't want all the shit from my past staying with me forever Edward and I don't want to feel like I'm not worthy of finding someone to just love me, you know?"

I felt sympathy well up within me at Rosalie's words. It was the first time in a long while that she had expressed feelings of low self-worth in front of me and for some reason I took that to mean that it had been a long time since she had felt them. When Rose first told me about everything that had happened with Royce, not only did she express feelings of guilt and shame, but also confessed that she didn't feel like she was now worthy of someone loving her because she was so broken. I had told her vehemently that this was not the case, but it took her a while to even start believing that I truly wanted to be there for her – no strings attached and it took her a hell of a lot longer to take my words to heart about her deserving more than most people because she had suffered so much. Well, at least I thought she'd taken my words to heart – looks like I was wrong this entire time.

"I didn't know you still felt like that Rosalie," I said to her, my voice hushed for an unknown reason.

Rosalie looked away from me and shrugged again, like it was a nervous twitch or something. "I don't all the time," she clarified. "Most of the time I'm fine...well, as fine as I can be anyway, but there are just..." Rosalie took a breath and furrowed her brows thoughtfully. "Look, there are just some things going on in my mind that I can't always sort out by myself and you and Carlisle are fantastic, but I can't lay all this stuff on you. I still have to see you guys all the time and even though I know you're not judging me, there are some things I can't tell you – that I don't want to tell you."

I nodded throughout her statement to encourage her to continue and to show that I understood because I did. As much as I wanted to be there for Rosalie and as much as I tried to be, there were some things that I couldn't help her with. I had grown to realise this in the years that I'd known her – some demons can't be slain by the knight and must be battled by the damsel herself. Neither I nor Carlisle could really understand what she had gone through and we weren't qualified to help her deal with the scars that she had sustained. There were certain boundaries in all friendships – all relationships even – and it would have been more than harrowing to be told every little detail of Rosalie's experience, but Carlisle had once told me that this was where she needed to go to fully heal from it all. I wondered if she had shared her full history with the therapist yet, especially when she found out about the trial.

"Anyway, I called my therapist last night," she continued. "He gave me his out of hours contact number when I told him that I'd be flying here for the trial. He thought I might need someone to talk to that wasn't you. I told him about what happened yesterday and he told me that he thought it may be time for me to face Royce."

Obviously she had gone to a quack therapist. What kind of respectable professional would tell her to specifically face the depraved man that had acted out every one of his sick fantasies on her very unwilling, innocent self? One that didn't know what the hell they were talking about, that's what. I was just about to share my opinion of this so-called therapist to Rosalie when she effectively shut me up with a sharp look – she obviously knew what I was going to say. Sometimes I think we spend far too much time together.

"Before you even start he was completely right," she defended. "Dr. Kline said that I was still seeing Royce as he was when I was 13 and that was why he still had power over me. He said it was kind of like the Wizard of Oz –"

"If the wizard was a sick bastard who had abused Dorothy," I interrupted. I don't exactly know why I was finding it so hard to accept that she had gone to see Royce King, but every single part of me was screaming that I should have kept her away. Why would she subject herself to that kind of emotional turmoil if she didn't need to? Were the nightmares and seeing him every day at the trial not enough? Did she really need to add fuel to the fire?

Rosalie glared at me although I didn't know if it was because I disagreed with her therapist, because I had interrupted her explanation when I'd pretty much badgered her for it, or if it was because my comment was less than tactful. It may have been for all three of those reasons. "If you weren't such a fucking asshole it would be much easier to explain," she scolded and I felt a little ashamed of myself.

"Sorry," I apologised, ducking my head to indicate that she could now carry on without any more of my insensitive interruptions.

"Anyway, he said that if I saw the man behind the monster, I would realise that I was free. The bastard couldn't hurt me anymore. I'd survived the darkness and I could bask in the light." She rolled her eyes at the words of her therapist. "All very poetic shit, but the gist was that I would see that Royce was now nothing more than a pathetic excuse for a human being who was going to spend the rest of his life rotting in jail and he was right."

Rosalie paused to take a deep breath, which she blew out slowly with a small look of triumph on her face. I couldn't help but notice the way her eyes shone for the first time in weeks – years maybe. I was rather amazed at the change – slight yet definitely significant. Maybe this guy wasn't such a quack after all.

"I mean it's not like I'm fine now and I won't have any more problems, but it helps to know, to see him. I don't know if I can explain it properly, but seeing him as nothing more than a man was just really...it was enlightening. In my head he's always been this supernatural monster who could get to me anywhere and I couldn't do anything against him – and I suppose I couldn't when I was 13 or whatever. But I'm not 13 anymore and he isn't omnipotent."

She carried on explaining what visiting and talking to him had made her feel like and all the way through it, I could tell that that she definitely felt...lighter? Was that the right word to use? Maybe not, but it was as if Rosalie had let go of some of the things that I knew still kept her up some nights. She told me about the conversation she had with him, about how she explained what he had done to her life, besides the obvious damage done all those years previously. She also told him about the baby that they had both lost and it was here that she paused briefly. I don't think that Rosalie had ever let herself grieve for the child that she had carried and lost all those years ago. I think she preferred to focus on the fact that the father of that child had been a monster so that she didn't feel the pain of it – she had more than enough to deal with anyway.

Rose explained how cathartic it had been to really tell this man what he'd done to her and how she'd moved on from it all. She told me that it was only when she heard herself tell him all the things she'd done in her life since she was 17 that she really realised she had come through it as whole as she could be. I think she began to 'get closure', as clichéd as that term was. I don't think she would ever truly move on until he was sent to prison and she talked more about the baby that she had lost, but she was getting there, much faster than she had been for the past five years.

We spent the rest of the night not doing too much – sitting around and talking about everything else in our lives that didn't involve the trial or Rosalie's therapy sessions. I told her about Zafrina when she asked what I'd been doing whilst she purged her mind of her 13-year old self's thoughts. Zafrina and I had spent the rest of my time at the park together and even had lunch together – at her invitation. I found out that I was right about the accent...kind of. Zafrina was actually from Brazil, though her father was Portuguese. She had gone to boarding school in England until she was 18 and was visiting friends here for the summer. It was nice being with her – she was a breath of tropical air right in the middle of London. She was _almost_ as easy to talk to as Bella and not nearly as intimidating because she hadn't constantly left me tongue-tied and stumbling throughout our first conversation. I found out that Zafrina was actually going to be attending college in the US, wanting to be closer to her home country than she had been before. I was incredibly impressed when she told me that she would be attending Harvard for undergrad. When I asked what she wanted to eventually do in her life she shrugged and said that she was pretty much doing it already – travelling and meeting lots of interesting new people.

She wasn't too impressed with the fact that I was an actor, which made me feel both ashamed and indignant. Well, to say she wasn't impressed would actually be an understatement considering she laughed outright when the words left my mouth. She didn't stop laughing until I stood up and threatened to leave the cafe, at which point she breathlessly asked me to stay. When she recovered enough of her breath of get out actual sentences, she apologised and explained why she found my occupation so amusing.

"_It was just the last thing I expected you to say and yet the first thing that came to my mind when I first saw you," she gasped out, still clutching her stomach from all the laughing. _

_I looked at her questioningly, wondering what the hell that was supposed to mean and still a little pissed off that she would laugh at it. I mean sure, I wasn't saving the world, but at least I had a job – one that I loved and one that I was hopefully decent at. I _hated_ it when people looked down on you because of your profession and up until now, I hadn't thought that Zafrina was that type of person – it looked like I was wrong._

_She looked up and saw that my expression had gone from confused to a little pissed, which wiped the smile from her face completely. "I'm really sorry Edward," she said sincerely. "I'm not laughing at the fact that you're an actor – honestly I'm not. It's just when I first saw you the first thought in my head literally was 'wow, I bet he's an actor' and here you are telling me that I was right. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you."_

_I could tell she was genuinely sorry that she had inadvertently insulted me, so I decided to let it go and carry on with the pleasant conversation that we'd been having before. It took Zafrina a while before the shamed look in her eyes faded, but eventually it cleared and she had that mischievous twinkle back that I couldn't help but be drawn to. I always was a sucker for confusing and insane women. _

Throughout our exchange, I couldn't help my mind making comparisons between Bella and Zafrina and it wasn't until I was on the verge of telling Rosalie this that I realised it was an incredibly strange thing to do. They didn't really have too much in common apart from very similar hair colouring – though Bella's had a touch more red and copper woven through it that glinted in the sunlight. I guess I was just comparing the two of them because I had been in the middle of texting Bella when Zafrina came crashing into me. They were obviously just the two people who had been foremost in my mind – the fact that I hadn't compared her to Rosalie at all was not lost on me, but I chose to not give it any kind of significance.

Rosalie was extremely interested to know that I had gotten Zafrina's phone number and given her mine with the hopes to meet up at least once before I left. She asked me outright whether or not I was interested in the woman that I had met today and I had to admit, I kind of was. Zafrina was very different to the women I had been dating out in LA and definitely different to Claire. Maybe I just needed different right now. Rosalie agreed with me when I told her this and then cracked a joke about how she was glad I actually liked someone not in their teenage years. I threw a cushion at her, which landed in her face mid-cackle.

*

**BPOV**

Jacob and I had spent the entire day yesterday just being with each other – in a way that we hadn't really done for a while. I guess it had been very easy to overlook our relationship for the past few months; we both had a lot of things going on with our respective careers. It was quite scary to realise that what I had thought was a perfectly functioning relationship wasn't at all functioning very well – hadn't been for quite a while now. I don't know whether we had noticed, but chosen not to ignore it in the hope that it got better with time, or we both literally just didn't notice. I hoped to god it was the former because if it wasn't, what would stop it from happening again? How could we make sure that we caught it early enough next time? We had spent the entire morning yesterday talking about what had been going on with the both of us the past few months and I realised that there was so much I hadn't actually told Jacob. I hadn't told him about the niggling thoughts in my head in regards to missing out on all the normal teenage milestones. I hadn't told him that I sometimes missed my Mom in a way that I couldn't even begin to express even though she was living about five hundred yards from me. Nor had I told Jacob about my friendship with Edward Cullen and that was the one grey area of our day yesterday – I still hadn't.

I don't exactly know _why_ I didn't tell Jacob about Edward – I'd had plenty of chances to before now and I certainly had an opening when he asked who the message was from when my phone bleeped yesterday. The interesting thing was I didn't feel guilty for omitting it from Jake, which I reasoned must mean that I wasn't doing anything wrong. I figured that it would seem weird if Edward and I were such good friends without actually having spent any time together on set and that would surely cast suspicion on why he was hired above more well known actors. Once preproduction started, I would tell Jacob all about Edward – and the rest of the cast. Hell, he would probably meet all of them at some point, especially since he already knew both Sue and Alice.

We spent the afternoon not doing much of anything, but just being in each other's company. I couldn't remember when we'd spent a day like this together without one of us having to interrupt in the middle because we were called to a meeting or because we had to catch a flight. Maybe Edward had a point with the whole taking a break between projects thing. Later last night, Jacob had attempted to teach me how to make risotto, but my attempt had ended up looking like some really wet rice with bits of mushroom that wasn't all that well cooked even though the rice at the bottom of the pan was a little burnt. I don't quite know how I managed that – Jake didn't either and the fucker almost fell on the floor laughing at me when I showed it to him. It was a damn good job that he'd made a batch too because at least we had something to eat instead of having to get takeaway.

Jacob was spending the day with both my father and his – some sort of weird male bonding shit that they had apparently organised months ago. It was the first time that I'd ever heard of it, but apparently it was something that they did every once in a while when they all had time to spare. That was one very good thing about Jake – he got along with my Dad famously. There hadn't been any weird dinners with my parents where my Dad would talk about weapons that he could use in an attempt to persuade Jacob to not touch me until we got married. I mean it wasn't like Jake was telling my Dad about our sex-life or anything, but there was an easy acceptance of him into the fold, as it were. Not so much with my mother though and I sometimes wondered if this was the root of our problems; if my relationship with Jacob had driven a wedge between Renee and I.

My Mom hadn't exactly warmed to Jake the first time she'd met him. I guess he never really stood a chance when the first thing he'd done was to vomit all over her brand new cream wrap-around dress. He'd apologised profusely and tried to clean some of it off, but accidentally ended up placing his hands in very inappropriate areas. I had thought it was hilarious at the time and I still thought it was one of the best first meetings ever, but Renee obviously didn't agree – neither did Jake. He'd been trying to get on her good side since then, especially when we were on the cusp of dating, but my mother was rather stubborn and first impressions counted for everything in her book.

I was getting ready for a day in my clearing with the books that Edward insisted everyone had to read before they died and my iPod when Alice called to tell me that she on the way to my apartment to pick me up for some adventure and 'girl-time', as she referred to it. Alice and I had developed a rather interesting and remote friendship over the past couple of weeks – remote referring to the fact that although we spoke often on the phone, I hadn't actually physically seen Alice for about two and a half weeks. I think the absence of her corporeal form may have had something to do with her budding relationship with Jasper. Aside from Alice telling me herself that their relationship was going well, I had the unfortunate experience of witnessing their growing _closeness_ first-hand when Alice left me a message with the background of Jasper groaning and her giggling. Needless to say I deleted it as soon as I could and tried to do the same to the images it conjured up in my head, but there was no button to press for those.

That was how I ended up waiting for Alice in the driveway of my own house, wondering what the hell she'd planned for us to do today. She hadn't really given too much away other than the fact that I should dress comfortably and pack a bikini. I had thought at first that we were just going to spend the day at the beach, but she had warned me of a two hour drive. If we were going to hang out at the beach, there were a hell of a lot of beaches closer than two hours away. I heard the door of the main house shut behind me and saw my Mom come down the driveway with garbage bags in both hands. I rushed over to help her carry them, but at the surprise on her face when I came closer, I figured she hadn't actually seen me out here to begin with.

"Oh Bella," she said, letting go of the bag in her right hand and bringing the now free hand to her chest. "You scared me. I didn't see you."

"Sorry," I apologised, leading the way to the garbage cans at the other end of the drive. "I thought you needed help."

"I did," she agreed, dumping the other bag in her hand on top of the one I had just discarded. "Thank you."

I smiled slightly at her, wondering how our conversations turned from two hour marathons into awkward exchanges by the driveway. "You're welcome Mom," I said softly, watching her retreat back into the house. Sometimes when I saw my Mom, it actually hurt to be in her company – I missed her more than I could ever explain, more than I think I could understand – I felt like I'd lost her. I turned to look at the street once more for Alice, trying to think of something else besides the extremely broken relationship I had with my mother or I wouldn't be going anywhere today but back to bed to cry.

"Bella?" my Mom's voice called out uncertainly. I swallowed thickly before I turned around, making sure that no tears had fallen from my eyes; I didn't want her to see me cry.

"Yeah?" I was surprised my voice didn't crack at all as I answered.

"Are..." she paused and bit her lip in a gesture that was familiar to me because I'd been doing it my whole life when I was nervous. Maybe it was something I had picked up from my Mom – I had to swallow another batch of tears quickly at that stray thought. "Are you and Jacob okay?" she asked finally.

The question shocked me and not just because I knew my mother didn't like Jake, but also because how on earth would she have had a clue that there could even be anything wrong with us? I hadn't spoken to her about anything of consequence in years and I certainly hadn't spoken to her about Jake within the past couple of nights.

I nodded my reply slowly, a million questions running through my mind, but only able to utter one of them out. "Why?" The simplest question, but the one I felt covered a lot of ground. Like why would she ask? Why would she care? Why was this the first conversation we'd had about my life for months – years maybe? Why did she stop being my Mom?

"I saw him leave yesterday whilst I was looking for the cat and I saw him come back again very early this morning – before the post even," she explained to me. "He looked miserable both times."

Observant. I wondered how much she could see of my life from the windows of the main house and I wondered whether she'd even been watching until the night before last. I looked at her, really looked at her and saw concern mixed with sadness and something else shining from deep within the same brown eyes that I saw in the mirror every day. Regret. I took a deep breath, feeling the tears that I had kept at bay for the past few minutes sliding silently down my cheeks. I wiped them away hastily and had just opened my mouth to say something when Alice pulled up to my house, tyres screeching, horn beeping and music blaring from her bright yellow Porsche. My Mom was gone when I turned back around after having been distracted by Alice's arrival and I could only hope that it wasn't the end of whatever had been started today.

I had tried to join in with Alice's delighted shouts as we sped down the freeway with the top down of her sports car, but my mind was elsewhere and eventually I just cranked up the music and hoped that she wouldn't think I was being rude. I needed time to think about what the hell had just happened on my driveway, but I couldn't seem to organise the thoughts into any kind of comprehensive pattern, so I just let the music wash over me and desperately pushed down the many feelings of emptiness, abandonment and anger that I felt towards my mother. I'd had a lot of practice over the years so by the time we pulled up to our destination, I was almost back to the state of mind I was in before that strange exchange on the driveway – until I noticed that we were parked near a harbour of some sort – hundreds of miles outside of LA. When had I missed the fact that we'd actually driven outside city limits?

Alice laughed at my stunned and bewildered expression. "You may catch flies if you don't close your mouth Bella," she joked, stepping out of the car in typically graceful fashion.

"Alice, what the hell are we doing in San Diego?" I asked, getting out to follow her towards the harbour filled with boats and yachts of all sizes.

"I thought we could take the yacht out since it's such a nice day," she informed me casually, as if this was something people did every day. Well, actually maybe a lot of people in Hollywood did do this on a fairly regular basis, but I was not one of them and I hadn't thought Alice was either.

"The yacht?" I asked stupidly.

"Of course," she confirmed, turning around to face me, but still walking in the direction she had been heading in. She gave me a confused look and then laughed once more. "Oh, sorry. I forget sometimes that you don't know anything about me. My family are from here," she explained. "It's our yacht. We're...or maybe they're...well, there's money in the family anyway."

Quite a lot of money if the clothes, the car and the yacht were anything to go by. I had always thought that Alice had earned the money that she used to buy those things, and maybe she had, but there was also a wealth of it in store somewhere so that it didn't actually necessitate her working at all. It turned out that there was a choice of two yachts that we could board and Alice let me have the choice because I was 'the guest'. The first yacht was huge and quite a contradiction to its name of _'The Pixie'_, which she explained was some inside family joke that would bore me to death and wouldn't really make sense to me anyway. The second yacht, which was called _'Mary'_ after her grandmother, was much smaller and much less conspicuous, so I opted for it. Alice made her way on board, saying something about making Margaritas for us to enjoy before we set sail. I wanted to ask her just _how_ we were going to set sail – the only boat I had ever been on had been a rowing one and that didn't end up too well for anyone involved when I somehow managed to turn the thing over.

I needn't have worried, as it turned out; Alice had been sailing her whole, life, so knew exactly what she was doing and, more importantly, could give me instructions on what to do and when to stay out of her way. The yacht had an engine, but she only turned that on to get us moving out of the harbour, after which she cut it, put the sails up and let the wind take us the rest of the way further out to see. Within about forty minutes, we were surrounded by a vast expanse of calm, deep blue waters and sea air. Alice surveyed the scene before us and nodded her head, apparently pleased with the spot. I helped Alice drop the sail and put the anchor down so that we would stay in this little piece of heaven for a while, enjoying the sun, the peace and the alcohol.

"You can change into your bikini downstairs if you want," Alice instructed whilst pulling off her own clothes in front of me to reveal a bright pink bikini with black pots – apparently the girl loved outrageous colours when it came to her clothes as well as her car. I got up to follow her instructions, taking the empty jug of what had been Margarita so that I could fill it again with some other alcoholic concoction. We did need to keep hydrated if we were going to stay out in the sun, after all. The part of the yacht below the deck was extremely luxurious with its polished dark wood panelling and silk covering both the seats and some parts of the walls. There was a bedroom and bathroom as well as the bar/dining/living area and a small kitchen, all decorated with expensively impeccable taste. I felt very out of my element here; this was not my life, sunning myself on board a yacht drinking cocktails with my rich friend. I wondered, briefly whether this was how Kristen had lived her life. I figured that she must have spent at least some days like this, what with her family's wealth and status. There was definitely a scene in the script where she had taken Robert onboard her family's yacht so that she could spend some time alone with him. I wondered how Edward and I were going to play that scene – the first time that they'd made love. It was going to be the first scene of the sort that I had ever done and even thinking about it now made me a little nervous.

I was much less bold in the choice of colours for my bikini, choosing a simple black one that I'd had for years and worn only a handful of times. I didn't hang out at the beach much, despite living in LA, because my skin didn't do the whole tanning thing that other people's did. I was pale, always had been, and always would be probably. I liked the sun – loved it in fact – but it obviously did not return the sentiment. I did, however, enjoy a nice pinking glow after I'd been out in it for about thirty minutes – which quickly turned into a hellish lobster red if I forgot to apply sunscreen. Thinking about the various shades of red and pink that I could turn my pale cream skin into got me into the mood for making a Tequila sunrise; I decided that it was far too early in the afternoon to be mixing drinks already.

Alice had set up an area for us to lie upon, complete with throws and cushions that I assumed she brought in the huge bag she had been carrying. The iPod station that she had set up was also now softly sending out calming melodies that fitted perfectly with our serene paradise. I asked Alice about her relationship with Jasper, which she was only too happy to talk about, _gush_ about was probably a much more appropriate term actually, but one couldn't begrudge her the happiness that was shining from her very being when she talked about him. It was very strange, hearing Alice talk about Jasper, because although she'd known him a total of about four weeks, she seemed to speak about him like she was actually in love with him. I watched her closely as she retold a story of one of their dates and she was literally glowing from head to foot. The very mention of his name – even from her own mouth – seemed to make her eyes spark and her whole body light up with joy. Could you really fall in love with someone in four weeks?

"Alice?" I began, pouring myself yet another cocktail from the now nearly empty jug. "You sound dangerously close to falling in love with him." It was an observation rather than a question, which meant that she didn't have to answer it. I didn't want to make it seem like I was pumping her for information about her love life because I wasn't sure she would be at all receptive to that idea, no matter how much she had shared with me already – after all, so far all the sharing had been done on her terms.

Alice stopped in the middle of whatever she was about to say next and shut her mouth instantly. Mine, on the other hand dropped open with her reaction. Surely she wasn't. It was too soon. I was pretty sure it took me a hell of a lot longer than four weeks to fall in love with Jake. In fact, for me, it was more like a learning experience; I had _learned_ to love Jacob over time. I had gotten to know him and saw what a good person he was and I loved those things about him. How could you be in love with someone that you barely knew? I mean sure, she was obviously in lust with him – or rather they were in lust with each other – but love was a completely different matter.

"Alice?" I prompted, curious beyond belief about this.

Her eyes slid past my shoulder and her gaze shifted from me to something behind me. "I don't know Bella," she confessed. "I just feel like I've been waiting for Jasper my entire life, you know?" Rhetorical question because obviously I didn't know, otherwise I wouldn't be asking her these questions. "We just...I can literally spend twenty four hours of every day just being with him, seeing him, talking to him. I've never felt so..."

She broke off from speaking and sighed, still looking into the distance behind my shoulder. I was still quite shocked at what Alice was telling me because it didn't fit at all with what Jake had told me about her. Jacob had always said that Alice loved to party and she loved dating guys – plenty of them. She hardly ever got serious and she kept a lot to herself, which was probably one of the many reasons why her relationships never worked out. I broke away from my train of thoughts when she turned to look at me properly.

"It sounds really stupid right?" she asked, again not really expecting an answer. "I've never been one of those girls who get flashes of the white picket fence and the 2.5 children running around when I date a guy Bella, but with Jasper...with Jasper all I can see is the future and he's pretty much the only thing in it." Alice paused to take the final sip from her near empty glass. "It's funny isn't it? How we're doing a film about this couple who pretty much fall in love from the first moment they see each other and it's now happening with me?"

I chuckled along with her, handing her the empty jug because it was her turn to come up with something for us to drink this time. "I just hope life doesn't imitate art too much Alice," I call after her. "Kristen and Robert's love story didn't exactly have the happiest of endings."

I heard Alice laughing along with me as she slipped out of sight and I leaned back to think over the things she'd said. It certainly sounded like Alice was in love with Jasper, as crazy as I thought it was. She beamed utter joy when she talked about him and there was such softness in her eyes and her face when she was explaining to me about her feelings for him. I personally didn't believe in love at first sight, not at all. I don't think that you can see someone from across a crowded room and have your entire life changed by them. Life didn't work out like that – relationships weren't like that. There was always the initial attraction of course; the thumping heart when you first notice them looking back at you, the nervous stuttering as you try to think of something vaguely interesting to say, but there wasn't a life-altering moment within that interaction. You choose to change your life for someone when you're in the relationship already and know that it's worth the effort and sacrifice. I didn't even think that Kristen and Robert had actually fallen in love at first sight themselves, it just played better like that on screen. People didn't want to go to the movies to see realism – they went to live in the fantasy.

When Alice came back out with a jug of 'Cosmopolitan', I was suddenly very aware of the fact that she was supposed to be driving us back and yet here she was getting rather inebriated. When I pointed this out to her, she just shrugged and said she could always call someone to get us off the boat if she was actually too drunk to sail it – they had people on staff at the harbour that did these kinds of things. With that settled and me being a little too drunk to really think too much about the details anyway, or the fact that I would normally be rather embarrassed about having to call someone to collect me because I was too drunk to get back on my own, Alice and I spent a little more time talking. At one point, I felt as if she was asking a lot of questions about Edward and had I not been a little intoxicated, I would have been completely on the defensive about the matter and refused to speak to her about it. As it was, I answered as many of her questions as I could without lying and when I couldn't, I just lied. I wasn't too sure why Alice was asking questions about Edward because as far as she knew, the last time I'd seen him was when she had – the last audition that he did. I wondered if maybe Jasper was introducing her to his friends already and she was trying to get as much information as possible on the one she actually knew so that she could get him on side to win everyone else over. In my opinion she didn't need the help; Alice was very easy to like and if Jasper was half as crazy about her as she was about him, it wouldn't matter what his friends thought of her anyway.

*

I was dying. My head was about to split in two and let out the mush that had become my brain; it was even hurting to be thinking about the fact that my head was hurting. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids had been replaced by lead at some point in the night. Maybe it was the same person that had hacked at my skull. I felt someone sit on the bed and assumed it was Jacob, hopefully to give me pain killers and give me my normal eyelids back. I don't exactly remember how I ended up back home last night – I don't really remember anything after the fifth jug of brightly coloured cocktail was drained. I wanted to ask Jacob if Alice had dropped me off home, but all that came out was an unintelligible groan that was muffled into the soft material underneath me. Great, I was lying face down too.

"You obviously can't handle your alcohol too well Bella," a voice from very far away said. It was familiar, that much my mushy brain could work out, but it definitely was not the deeply masculine voice of my boyfriend. What the fuck happened last night?

"Urghmm." In my head, I was trying to ask the person sitting on the edge of my bed who they were, but obviously that wasn't the sound that eventually came out. Why were words so hard to come by right now?

"I swear you weren't even that drunk last night Bells," the nameless and bodiless voice said again. The weight moved off the end of where I was still laid completely motionless. "You should takes these and drink this," the voice instructed, placing some things somewhere next to me on a hard surface.

I tried to tell whoever it was that I couldn't even open my eyes, let alone move my head or my arms to drink anything, but once more all that came out of my mouth was a sound that could have come from an animal. The voice chuckled and I wanted to admonish them for laughing so merrily when I was beginning to think I was actually paralysed and I had lost at least half a day of my life. I didn't really see where the humour in the situation was – but then again at the moment, I couldn't see much besides the back of my eyelids.

"I called Jake to let him know what happened to you," the voice carried on talking, not caring that I wasn't responding. I decided that the voice must belong to Alice because she was the last person I remembered being with and it was obviously her fault that I was in this state so she should be looking after me right now. "But you have to get up because we have a long drive ahead of us before we get home Bella."

Ha! I would love to get up. I had been trying to get up since I became conscious again, but for some reason none of my body parts wanted to obey any command coming from my liquid brain. If I couldn't even move such little things as my eyelids, how the hell was I supposed to move an entire arm? I would have explained all of this to Alice, but I knew my mouth wouldn't form the words because my tongue also refused to move. It was a wonder I was still breathing with all the shutting down my body was doing. I felt Alice's small hands on my left shoulder and side as she rolled me over with a strength that I wouldn't have believed possible coming from a little thing like her. The movement, although appreciated, did not go unpunished as my stomach lurched and my head throbbed even more painfully still. When would this torture end?

"Open your eyes Bella," Alice instructed and then she leaned over me and pulled my eyelids open carefully.

_Oh holy mother of god!_ The light in the room was blinding and I quickly screwed my eyes closed once more, wondering if I would ever be able to see again now that my retinas had been damaged to such an extent. What the hell had I done to Alice last night to be making her do this to me?

"Shit, sorry Bella," Alice apologised, her weight once again leaving the bed. "I totally forgot to shut the curtains."

The room suddenly became darker and I chanced opening one eye just to see whether or not I'd been permanently blinded by Alice's carelessness. I saw patterns on the white ceiling above my head so I figured that my eyesight was intact – at least for now. I tried to move my head to where I thought Alice had put the things she'd instructed me to take, but the movement of my head was still too much for me – my eyelids had been a battle bravely won, but it seemed as if this task was a little too big right now. I needed to rest. I was just drifting off again to a world with the most amazing piece of music I'd ever heard. It was one that I felt was familiar, but I couldn't really tell what exactly it was and even though I strained to hear it, it seemed to be getting further and further away from me.

"BELLA!" Alice shouted, completely drowning out the beautiful melody that I had wanted to wrap around me forever.

"Uhhmm..."I groaned again. "Waoowanalss?" Wow, I think those were actual words muddled together then instead of just a noise.

"I want you to get up, take these pain killers, knock back that water like you knocked back the tequila shots last night so that you can get showered, get dressed and we can get the hell out of here." Alice was frustrated, which didn't surprise me one bit, but nor did it make moving any easier. She moved closer to me again and tugged on my arm.

I opened my arm and looked at her for the first time since I woke up in this strange bed. "Alice," my voice was croaky and if it hadn't actually hurt me to move my mouth I wouldn't have recognised it. "Alice where the hell are we?"

She looked at me curiously for a beat and then burst out laughing. "God you're bad. Come on."

Forty-five minutes later and I was showered, dressed and feeling half-way human again. I would have to buy Alice something, or rather do something for her because she already had everything you could possibly buy. She told me that we were picked up from the yacht around 9 last night and brought to her parent's home where I promptly passed out at in the hallway and hit my head before anyone could catch me. That explained why my head hurt like hell – it wasn't just the alcohol after all. Alice had been worried I got concussion and checked up on me several times in the night, but every time she tried to rouse me, I would apparently just groan at her and shake her hand off. I had obviously blanked out all the embarrassing stuff I did last night – thank god; I don't think I could live with the embarrassment of knowing every excruciating thing I said to Alice. I tend to talk a lot of shit when I'm drunk and last night had been a doozy if my hangover this morning was anything to go by.

Alice's driving wasn't nearly as fun when you were hung-over and fighting with all your might not to vomit bile after already having heaved everything you ate – and drank – into the toilet. I was just closing my eyes again because the blurred scenery wasn't helping the whole head situation when Alice said something that banished all thoughts of the hangover from my mind.

"I think you should talk to your Mom about everything Bella," she said casually, like she was finishing off a conversation that we'd been having.

I lifted my head from the rest at the back of the seat and looked at her from behind my sunglasses, wondering whether I was hearing things because my brain had been damaged by too much alcohol, too much sun and not nearly enough sleep. There was absolutely no fucking way I would have told Alice about my mother – not in this lifetime. I had barely just told Jacob about the situation with my mother and I'd known him for nearly 5 years and he was my boyfriend. So it was very hard for me to believe, that even in my drunken state, I would have told Alice something I had a very hard time even admitting to myself.

"Excuse me?" I choked out.

Alice kept looking straight ahead at the roads before us whilst talking to me. "You told me last night about you and your Mom having some sort of disagreement," Alice explained and I literally felt myself hold my breath waiting for her to continue. "I just think that you should tell her how upset you are about it."

How upset I was about it? Disagreement? Where was this coming from? I didn't consider myself and my mother to have had a disagreement at all and I was more than fucking upset about it. I felt like not only had I lost a family member, but I'd lost part of who I was. Upset didn't even begin to cover it. "Alice what the hell did I say to you last night?" I whispered out, wanting to know, but yet not at the same time. I really could not believe that I had bared my soul to a girl that I hadn't even known for three months. I am never drinking alcohol again.

She shrugged and glanced over at me before going back to watching the traffic around us. "Nothing much. I asked you about what had happened on the drive between you and your Mom just before I came to pick you up and you said that it was the first time you guys had talked in a while. I asked you why that was and you said that you had a disagreement. You didn't tell me what it was about and I didn't ask, but you were pretty broken up about it last night Bella. You kept saying that you didn't understand what had happened."

Oh. My. God. I had actually had a full on break down in front of Alice last night. Jesus Christ! Obviously emotional moments with your estranged mother didn't mix well with litres of Tequila. I was going to have to make a note of that somewhere lest this incident should ever be repeated. On the plus side, unless Alice was heavily editing what I'd said yesterday, I hadn't given her too much information on the situation – just the bare minimum. It was more than I would have given her at all if I had been sober, but it was my own fault for getting that drunk. I began to wonder whether Alice had watched me get drunk just so she could ask me that question, but I dismissed this as a stupid idea because the girl had just as much to drink as I did. The fact that she still looked like a normal, functioning human being after that much alcohol was just a testament to her stamina rather than her evil scheming. Goodness, I was extremely dramatic hung-over.

"Look," she said after several minutes of silence where I was just berating myself about the loose lips I had recently acquired. "You may not be comfortable telling me everything and you may not want to because goodness knows Jake's right about you being private, but I am your friend Bella and I do understand what it's like to fight with your parents."

There was a hint of sadness and bitterness in Alice's tone that was difficult to miss and suddenly I was curious about why this seemingly perfect woman with a seemingly perfect life would ever use that tone. I looked over at her, but could see nothing in her face that would even hint at what she was implying because the large D&G sunglasses perched on her nose obscured half of her face from view. I wondered whether I should ask her about it, but I knew that it would be very hypocritical of me to enquire about her personal life when I wasn't willing to share the details of mine. Even though I tried to rationalise the fact that Alice was a much more open person than I was anyway, I couldn't bring myself to utter the questions that burned in the back of my head.

The rest of the drive home was quite silent and I found myself thinking about my Mom again and our current relationship – or lack thereof. There had been so many times over the years when I wanted to have that close relationship I once shared with my mother. My first real date with Jacob should have had a moment between the two of us where she advised me on what to wear or how to do my make-up and my hair. The first time I thought about having sex with my boyfriend, I should have been able to talk to my Mom about the possibility of going on the Pill or buying condoms, but I couldn't do any of those things because my mother was no longer a part of my life at that point. When I was younger, I would have absolutely detested the thought of talking to my Mom about boys and sex, but after having gone through those important milestones in my journey to adulthood without her, I would give anything for the opportunity to die of shame and embarrassment at the prospect of having the 'sex talk'.

At times when I miss her the most, I blame her for the way things are with us. I mean she was the adult in the relationship, the _parent_ for god's sake. Surely she should have seen what was happening and tried to stop it. Didn't she want to save our relationship? Did she hate me? Resent me? There were so many unanswered questions that were constantly being dredged up in my head whenever I found myself thinking about my mother. I wanted so badly to ask her, to get answers, but I was also extremely afraid of what she would say. As it stood, with me not knowing anything concrete about what the hell happened with my Mom and me, I could be angry at her and I could place the blame squarely on her shoulders. However, if I got the answers to the questions that I wanted desperately to scream out, would that change? Would I see my own mistakes and find that the only person at fault in the relationship had been me? Was it my fault that my own mother could no longer stand to be in the same room as me? I didn't know if I could handle that; didn't know if I wanted to. So, I settled for not knowing and speculating because the truth can hurt so much more than the lies and the fantasy. The truth you have to face – everything else you can run away from.

Alice pulled up outside of my house just after one in the afternoon, but I hesitated just as I was about to get out. I don't know why, but I felt as if I needed to make it clear to Alice that we were okay – that she hadn't offended me by saying the things that she'd said. Sure I wish she hadn't mentioned it, but she obviously didn't know the entire situation and I didn't want to take my frustration out on her when all she wanted to do was be my friend.

"Um," I didn't know how to start. "Thanks for yesterday Alice – and this morning actually." She and I both laughed at this. Good ice-breaker. "About the things I said last night..." I trailed off, not wanting to be too specific because I couldn't really remember anything specific. Alice just nodded her head, encouraging me to continue, but not pressing the issue. "I just...I want to say thanks for listening and stuff and I'm sorry if I was a bit...if I was a little distant just now when you mentioned it. I just don't really like talking about it, you know?"

Alice looked over at me and smiled. "Yeah," she agreed. "I know. Believe me Bella, I know."

Again with the cryptic clues about her life. I'm sure the confusions and questions were once again etched all over my face, but Alice had already looked back in front of her, letting me know that this conversation was over. If my behaviour had been puzzling her this morning, hers was definitely throwing me for a loop right now. I got out of the car after a quick goodbye and wondered what the hell Alice's family secrets were. First I find out that her family's loaded and then she's implying some sort of discord among the Brandon clan? I wonder if Jake knew anything about it. I don't think he knew that Alice's family were extremely rich – or if he did, he'd never mentioned it. I guess I wasn't the only one with secrets to keep.

Jake wasn't in my apartment when I got back in, but a note from him inviting me to join him and a few friends was left at the table by the door. As much as I wanted to spend time with my boyfriend, right now I wanted to go to bed more. My mind was hurting from all the alcohol, reflecting and the wondering I had been doing. It was just occurring to me that relationships, in all its forms were very complex things. I don't entirely know why that thought struck me at that moment in time, but as I crawled into bed I was immensely glad that I had at least one relationship that wasn't in anyway complicated, my friendship with Edward. The relationship between the two of us was just so _easy_ and right at that very moment – when I was in tangles and knots about my relationship with my own mother, when my relationship with my boyfriend had only just been rescued from the convoluted mess it had become and when I was itching to uncover secrets that my new friend was hiding – I couldn't have been more grateful that Edward was the one point in my life that just _was_. I decided to send him a text message to express my gratitude, though he wouldn't know what the hell I was talking about.

'_I'm glad we're simple creatures Edward because the rest of the world seems to be hell bent on being as twisted and mixed up as possible. I don't know if I can keep up with it all.'_

I drifted off to sleep wondering vaguely whether or not I was still a little bit drunk and whether I would remember what on earth I had said when he eventually messaged me back.

* * *

**AN: Thank you for your reviews and for those people not reviewing, thanks for just reading. This felt like a bit of a filler chapter, but I'm winding some stuff down with some characters and opening stuff out for others, so it was needed. **


	10. Chapter 10 The End is The Beginning

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything publicly recognisable. Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and real people own themselves.**

**AN: I am EXTREMELY SORRY for the lack of updates - reasons at the end. SORRY!**

**Chapter 10 – EPOV**

'_...because the rest of the world seems be to hell bent on being as twisted and mixed up as possible...'_ Bella had definitely gotten that right and those words flashed before my eyes as I stood with Rose, waiting for the jurors to pile back in and deliver the verdict that everyone in this room had been waiting to hear since the beginning of this whole ordeal. I had absolutely no idea what exactly she was referring to within her own life, but it sure as hell fit in with what was happening in mine. I took a good look around at every face I could see and then had to shut my eyes again as I saw images of several women as young girls being terrorised by the man that still refused to take any kind of responsibility for his actions. Not for the first time, I wondered if people like Royce King had to tell themselves that what they were doing was acceptable in order to just be able to get up in the morning. I don't think I would ever comprehend how he could have just carried on with his normal life and pretended that he wasn't a sick bastard – how the guilt hadn't eaten him alive like it had done to Rosalie even though not a single part of it was her fault. Was there even a shred of humanity within the man that sat, still defiant, on the other side of the room?

Rosalie was twisting her hands in her lap, but apart from that, she hadn't moved at all since we had taken these seats. I, myself, couldn't help but let my eyes roam the crowd. There were reporters at the back of the room and artists sketching the scenes unfolding before them in lieu of cameras to capture the faces of the major players of this trial. I had avoided reading any news coverage on this case, simply because I was already working hard to get the images from a day in the courtroom out of my head last thing at night, I didn't need those memories to be triggered again. Rosalie avoided the news coverage for a whole other reason, I believed. I think she knew that there were still people out there who didn't believe her story and the story of the three or so other girls that had come forward. They were all now being judged, just as much as Royce King was – a fact that I absolutely couldn't even begin to comprehend, let alone accept.

Neither Rose, nor myself had gotten much sleep last night. We both retired to our respective rooms at around one in the morning, but I know for a fact that she was still pacing in her room at four thirty because I was sitting on the stairs watching her shadow move around under the door. I had thought she would come and talk to me eventually, or at least sneak into my room and make so much noise that had I been asleep, I would have had no choice but to wake up. However, she never even opened her door. As cowardly as it sounds, I was kind of glad that she didn't come to me – I would have had no idea what to say to her. I wanted to tell her that he would be put away for life and that no jury in the fucking world could ever convict him of being anything but guilty, but that wasn't always how real life worked. Justice wasn't always served and Rosalie had been failed by so many people and so many things in her life already – she wouldn't take kindly to me telling her that it would be different this time – especially if that turned out not to be the case.

Rose hadn't said anything to me this morning about what was about to proceed and I didn't know whether it was because she didn't want to think about it, or because she was trying very hard not to vomit with the nervous anticipation of it all. We hadn't exchanged more than the cursory 'good morning' over breakfast, but now as the heavy wooden doors that we had all been watching opened, she gripped my hand in hers tightly. She may have been strong and she may have been tough, but we both knew that this moment would define the rest of her life. It was disturbing that Royce King still had that sort of power over the incredible woman to my side, but apparently, he did and until a guilty verdict was delivered, he always would. My eyes slid over her face, but there was no emotion evident in the blue eyes that refused to look anywhere but at the twelve jurors that could change the lives of so many people in this room.

The preliminary chatter was just buzzing in my head as I waited with everyone else for the words that would rock not only this room, or the local community, but the entire country. A case of this magnitude went beyond the immediate area, went beyond the people that it affected – it gripped nations and I didn't doubt that every single person in Britain not only had an opinion, but had expressed it several times to their nearest and dearest. If I thought that the room was quiet before, it was nothing compared to the absolute silence that descended as the lead juror stood up, ready to speak the words out loud that would cause ripples to be felt for years to come. The time in which he finished speaking and then started to deliver the verdict must only have lasted three seconds, but it literally felt like a lifetime.

**Guilty. Life in prison.** The words rang out throughout the quiet room and over the hushed crowd like waves crashing on the smooth sand of the shore. For the longest time after the words had been spoken no one in the room moved and I was starting to think that I'd actually imagined the verdict in the time I was waiting for it to be read. Then all hell broke loose when King's wife started sobbing on the other side of the room. Cheers erupted, drowning out her distraught wailing and gasps resounded from all corners of the large courtroom. However, there was only one person's reaction that I was interested in and she had dropped my hand as soon as the more important word had left the juror's mouth.

Everyone around us was standing up and hugging each other with a joy that was brought about by the knowledge that justice, at least this time, had been justly delivered. Rosalie was still sat down, still staring at the place where twelve ordinary people had put away a monster, still completely silent. I was confused – surely she had just as much right as all of these people to rejoice over the fact that this bastard was finally getting what was coming to him. Actually, she had much more right than half of the people that were cheering right now because the majority of people that were making the most noise had not had their lives destroyed by Royce King. They were just here to witness the slaying of the dragon, as it were. Yet, there was no trace of joy or victory in Rosalie's features. In fact, there was absolutely no trace of emotion at all in her eyes.

"Rose?" I questioned softly, somehow trusting that she would hear the question that I wouldn't have been able to verbalise even without all the noise and celebrations going on around us.

She turned to me then and I saw it – the confusion, the hurt, the pain, the anger, the resentment, the joy, the relief, the victory and the guilt. Always the guilt. I had never known exactly what that haunted look behind Rosalie's ice blue gaze was; I had always assumed it was just a remnant of her unbelievably traumatic past, but now I knew that it was guilt. I had known, of course, that Rose, deep down, still partly blamed herself for what happened to her, but I had never connected that to the undefined emotion I saw within her every single day that I had known her. I felt like a fucking asshole in that moment – to not notice something to crucial about someone who was supposed to be my best friend.

"Rose," I said again, this time my voice understanding and comforting rather than puzzled. She tried to blink back the tears that were gathering and making her blue eyes darker, but she couldn't and by the time I had put both of my arms around her, she was sobbing into my blazer like she hadn't cried in years.

I understood what she was crying for now, what she felt guilty about. Even though Rosalie knew, on every level, that Royce deserved to rot in hell for all eternity, it didn't mean that she'd lost the compassion that made her who she was. She didn't want to rip a family apart – she didn't rejoice in having his kids be ridiculed by the world and shunned by those who they had once counted as friends. She had been on the receiving end of that and she wouldn't have wished that on anybody. This man hadn't just ruined the lives of the girls that he had terrorised, but he had ruined the lives of the people that he was supposed to love the most – the people that still loved him. Rosalie knew what this verdict would do to the innocent bystanders that had done nothing but put their trust in a man that had betrayed it horribly and she was grieving for that. Though she had every right to be joyous about the verdict, though she had more than enough reason to be popping champagne corks and proclaiming this to be the best day of her life, Rosalie couldn't be really happy when there were still so many casualties. I don't think I had ever admired anyone as much as I did Rosalie Hale in that moment.

*

I didn't see Rosalie again after we got out of the courtroom until she showed up at the house at night. She had begged me to let her go off by herself for a few hours because she really needed time to just think, just let herself get used to the idea that one of her greatest demons had been put to rest. I acquiesced because I got the feeling that Rosalie was a mixed up bag of emotions and she needed to get everything right in her own head first before she could even begin thinking about talking to anyone else about it. She would come to me in her own time if she needed me and I would always be there for her.

Whilst she was gone, I called Carlisle to tell him about the verdict and he too had mixed feelings about the whole thing, Of course he was relieved that the right decision had been made regarding Royce's guilt, but he also expressed concern about King's family and what would happen to his wife and kids, some of whom were only teenagers. There was no one within a ten mile radius of this case that was left unaffected and without their own wounds from it. Only one man was guilty, but the burden of his crimes fell on many. How was any of this fair? How had life come to this? When did everything become so hard and so complicated? Bella was right – the world was twisted and messed up and it seemed as if simplicity was ironically the hardest thing to find among the pandemonium.

Before I knew what I was doing, the phone was ringing and Bella's sleepy voice was sounding in my ear. I don't know what the hell had possessed me to call her, but I guess having too much time to think about the complexities of life made me want to talk to someone that was so far removed from this world that I'd been immersed in tha past week.

"Hello?" Bella said once more into the phone, her voice clearing of the sleep that I had obviously woken her from. "Edward?"

I glanced at the clock on the wall behind me and realised that it was very early in the morning over in LA and I had most probably woken Bella up for absolutely no reason. I just...I wanted to talk to her, find out what had been going on in her life to prompt the very insightful text message in the first place. I hadn't replied yet, unsure of what to say to express exactly how her words had pretty much summed up everything that had been going on in my life.

"Um...yeah," I said, my tone a little sheepish. I shouldn't have called her. I had no damn business calling her. She wouldn't appreciate my musings on life at six thirty in the morning. "Look, I'm sorry I called and woke you. I shouldn't have. I'll just...yeah, bye." I was about to press the 'end call' button, wishing that my embarrassment was that easy to shut off when I heard her call my name from the other end of the line.

"No!" she shouted. "It's fine Edward, really," she continued in a much quieter and calmer voice. "Besides, you've already woken me up. It would be damn annoying if we didn't at least have a two minute conversation out of this."

"Two minutes huh?" I asked, smiling. It was nice to have a conversation with someone that wasn't about anything of consequence – it was freeing and it allowed my mind to just rest for a while instead of running five hundred miles a minute. "Well, I guess I can spare that much money."

"I presume by that comment and that you're still on the other side of the pond?" she asked, her voice getting the teasing quality back that was very familiar. Sometimes I got the impression that Bella humoured me a lot and I didn't exactly know how to feel about that. I may have been older than her, but at times it kind of seemed like she had the upper hand in our friendship.

"I am indeed," I confirmed. "Though I should be flying back tomorrow."

"Shall I make a banner and hire a welcome committee to meet you at the airport?"

"A chauffeur-driven limo and a driver holding a sign with my name on it would do," I played along. She chuckled softly from the other end of the line and I was hit with a strong urge to go home. I loved London, but obviously this trip had taken a lot out of me and I was definitely ready to be back in America, even if it had to be LA. "Sorry I called you so early," I apologised again. "I didn't realise what time it was until you picked up."

"It's fine," Bella assured me, a smile still evident in her voice. "I've been asleep for about fourteen hours anyway. If I hadn't woken up soon, I'm pretty sure my Dad would have come around and thrown cold water over me."

"Fourteen hours? I guess all the sex, drugs and rock and roll is really getting to you Miss Swan," I teased. "And you're still only nineteen."

"Nineteen is practically ancient in this town darling," Bella drawled in a voice that would not have seemed out of place coming out of the mouth of a 45-year old woman who had smoked 30 cigarettes a day since she was 20. As it was, the throaty southern twang in Bella's voice surprised me and amused me at the same time. "To what do I owe this phone call to anyway Mr. Cullen?"

I shrugged before realising that she couldn't actually see me. "I just..." I trailed off, not knowing how to tell her that I just needed simplicity for a while and she always gave me that; always gave me a way to just clear the jumbled mess that was my mind. I sighed deeply – there was no way I could tell her that. "I just found your last text rather interesting," I said instead.

There was a pause before she answered and I wondered whether or not she had believed that I had called her at six thirty in the morning just to say that. I doubted it, but aside from the slight pause, Bella didn't acknowledge my strange reasoning at all. "Well, I'm rather an interesting person," she joked.

I laughed. "Maybe I'd believe you if I didn't know you," I countered, to which she made an indignant sort of noise and huffed loudly. "Anyway, what was that rather philosophical message about?"

Bella paused, cleared her throat and sighed before hedging her reply with a few 'umms' and 'ers'. Obviously she hadn't expected me to ask the meaning behind the message and it may have been over-stepping the invisible boundaries of our friendship, but I was intrigued about the message, more so now that she didn't have a quick, sarcastic answer to give me. Bella didn't strike me as the type of person who ran out of sarcastic quips too often – if ever actually.

"Come on Bella," I pressed. "This silence is costing me a fortune. I am but a struggling actor you know." That made her laugh a little, but I could tell even from thousands of miles away that she was still a little uncomfortable.

We spent a few more minutes in silence whilst I waited for her to tell me something real – something beyond the jokes and quips that we shared. "I...I had a very...it's been an interesting week or so for me without you following me everywhere," she started, the mocking tone in her voice at the end not entirely masking the uncertainty in her earlier words. "I had a lot of things going through my mind and a lot of alcohol making its way through my system."

"So I wasn't too far off with the sex drugs and rock and roll comment then?" I joked, knowing she would feel more comfortable with that than more questions. She had pretty much given me the answer that I was expecting – she was going through some shit in her personal life and she needed someone who wasn't a part of it to vent to. Obviously Bella and I regarded each other in the same way – a port in the storm that was real life.

"More like yachts, co-stars and plenty of tequila," she corrected. "Sorry if the message was a little cryptic Edward. I guess I didn't really think before I sent it."

I shook my head at the same time as I vocalised my answer. "Don't apologise for telling me what you think Bella," I told her firmly. "After all, if you can't vent via text message to your friend whose on the other side of the Atlantic, who the hell can you went to?" Her answering snort made me laugh out loud. "Besides, I completely understand where you're coming from." Bella had shared something less superficial with me; I only thought it fair that I should do the same thing.

"You do?" she questioned, her voice much more serious than it had been even for her own semi-explanation.

"I do," I confirmed. "I've had a rather...let's say eventful...week as well and I kind of have an answer to your comment."

"Pray do tell Edward."

I took a deep breath and said the thoughts that had been going around in my head since I had come back to the house without Rosalie. "Have you ever thought that maybe there is a purpose to the confusion? Maybe it's just part of the journey and it's part of what makes the trip worthwhile?"

There was a thoughtful silence from the both of us and I could tell that Bella was digesting my words and seeing how it fit into the issues she had in her own life. In time, I would ask her exactly what her week had consisted off and in time maybe she would tell me, but for now, I think it was nice for the both of us to know that even though the other person didn't really understand, they understood enough. Bella, unbeknownst to her, had helped me think over a lot of things with her comments – she always managed to put things into perspective for me even when I didn't know they needed to be put in perspective. I was just beginning to suspect that maybe I did the same thing for her.

"Thank you Edward," she said finally.

I didn't need to ask what for – I knew. "You're welcome Bella. I'll see you when I get back to LA."

"Yeah," she agreed. "Have a safe trip."

We hung up the phone at the same time and I was left with a sense of peace. Someone out there understood. I didn't myself know exactly what it was Bella understood, but I felt as if she did. I felt as if we had some unspoken common ground that neither of us could really define, but we both knew it was there. It was a very strange thing, but I wasn't going to question it. I had far too many things to question and worry about. I was just going to let this unknown thing be. After all, it wasn't exactly a bad thing right?

*

I was already getting ready to go to sleep when Rosalie knocked on the door to the room that I had been calling mine for the past week, though she didn't wait to be called in before she entered. She came over and sat down on the edge of my bed, not even bothering about the fact that I had still to put on a pair of pants over my boxers. Obviously Rose had seen me in less, but usually she had the decency to wait until I was only half naked to come into my room. She looked...well, quite honestly she didn't look much better right now than she did when she asked me to let her have some time alone. Her eyes were still red, no doubt from hours of crying and nights of not getting enough sleep. Rosalie didn't just look tired, she kind of looked _defeated_, which was not something that dreamed of using as a description for her today of all days.

For a long time, neither of us said anything. I sat down on the other side of the bed once I'd finally put on a pair of pants and faced her, waiting for a cue to speak. She just gave me a tight smile and continued to follow the intricate pattern her fingers were aimlessly drawing on the bed. There were many things that had to be said hanging in the air between us, but I doubted that either of us really knew what to say and where to start. I wanted to know how Rose was feeling, but I didn't want to push her. She may have wanted to talk about something completely different. She may have wanted a distraction from the thoughts that had no doubt consumed her for an entire day – hell, an entire week. So, as much as it pained me to sit there in silence and wait for her to be ready to talk to me, I did it, watching her carefully for any signs that she may have wanted me to start the conversation.

"I went to see the grave today," were the first words out of her mouth and had I not been sitting down, I would have probably fallen over in a very comical fashion. I hadn't expected _that_ to be the opening sentence in _any_ conversation I pictured us having now, or in the near future. If anything this trip had shown me that I didn't know Rose as well as I thought I did. There were many layers to this girl that I couldn't even begin to uncover – not that she would even really let me try.

I closed my mouth after a few moments, not wanting to drool on the bed sheets. She didn't look up at all to see my reaction, but I think that she heard the gasp that left my mouth involuntarily nonetheless. I didn't say anything, choosing instead to just let her go on because right now the thoughts in my head made very little sense to me – I doubted very much that I would be able to express them in a way that would make sense to anyone else.

"I didn't plan on it," she continued after a couple of minutes. "I was just walking around, trying to understand why I wasn't happier about the verdict, why I felt like I'd lost something and suddenly, I was on a train to Brighton and walking up on the hill that I'd put a little stone for him on."

I didn't know that Rosalie had built a small grave for the baby that she never had the chance to know. I didn't even know that she knew it was a boy. Really, the list of things I didn't know about her were growing by the day and I had to wonder if Rosalie had ever really let me know her at all. Was the girl that I lived with every day really the one sitting in front of me right now?

"I honestly didn't know what the hell I was doing until I was kneeling in front of it and just crying my eyes out," she confessed, swallowing thickly. I grabbed the hand that wasn't tracing small patterns and held it tightly in mine, offering the support that she would never ask for, but obviously very much needed.

"I thought I'd feel so different after the trial Ed," she told me, changing the subject somewhat. "I thought that as soon as a guilty verdict was read, I'd feel like Atlas finally shrugging the world off his shoulders. I just...I thought I'd be able to finally move on from all of this and now I'm kind of thinking that I never will."

The devastation in her voice, shining from her eyes broke me. Today was supposed to be the start of Rosalie's new life, free from the shackles of her past, but it would seem that she was more haunted by it than ever before. I didn't know what to do. I was so out of my depth here. I wanted her to be happy, to have the life that she deserved, something I believed she could have with the man behind her misery firmly locked away where he belonged. Now...well, now I wasn't so sure that it was as simple as having Royce locked up. Rosalie had been running away from her past for a very long time and it seemed that now she was being forced to face it head on, she was finding far deeper scars than she had been aware of.

"Rose," I started, unsure of how to even carry on. "It's okay not to feel like rejoicing that someone got sent to prison, even if he did completely fuck up your life and the lives of everyone else around him. It makes you a better person. It shows the huge difference between you and him."

She shook her head. "No, Ed, it doesn't," she argued. "You don't understand. I'm fucking ecstatic that Royce is rotting in jail right now. Hell, for the first time in my life I wished I was blood American so that he'd be being strapped to a table and being injected right now. I don't give a shit about his life Edward."

I furrowed my brows in confusion and shock. Rosalie had _never_ agreed with the death penalty. In fact, she had said several times over that no civilised society should ever murder people, no matter the crime they had committed because the refusal to take another person's life was surely the ultimate thing that differentiated us from the monsters that we were judging. I was in complete agreement. I have never held the belief that we can be judge, jury _and _executioner. I was utterly at a loss for what to say right now at Rose's revelation. She really kept knocking them out of the park lately.

"I know it's terrible," she acknowledged. "I can't even begin to tell you how bad I feel for thinking that, but I don't take it back Ed and I won't apologise for it. That man ruined so many people's lives – not just his victims, but his family's. I really do think that the world is better off without people like that."

I didn't say anything – now was not the time to argue about the ethics of capital punishment. Besides, I would never tell Rose that she didn't have every right to want the man who robbed her of her childhood, who abused her for three years, dead. She did. I didn't know what it felt like to be in her shoes and I wasn't arrogant enough to think that I wouldn't feel exactly the same way if I had been in her situation.

"I do feel guilty," she continued, not really caring about whether I was replying to her or not. "I feel for his kids whose lives will be tainted by the bastard that their father was. He's pretty much fucked them over much like he did to me and the three other girls in that room. Hell, he probably fucked them over worse – I mean they have to live with the knowledge that there is a part of him within them right?"

"But more than anything really Ed, I just feel..." she trailed off and took a deep breath before continuing. "I feel simultaneously empty and extremely, extremely sad. I wish I could explain it, but I feel like I've lost something. I feel like I'm grieving and I really don't know what for. I thought I'd done all the grieving one person could do. I've had a lifetime of thinking about everything I've lost and everything I never got a chance to have. What more is there?" Rosalie was outright crying again as she finished the last of her words, but I got a feeling that she was crying more out of frustration than anything else. She pulled the hand that was still in mine away and wiped the tears falling down her cheeks angrily. She looked up at me for the first time since she got into the room and I felt a pressure upon me to say the right thing. My best friend was in a very fragile place at the moment and I was the only person here that could say or do anything to make her just that little bit less breakable – if I didn't completely fuck it up.

"You have lost something Rose," I reminded her. "Hell, you've lost quite a lot and maybe this is the first time that you've actually taken time to let yourself feel it. Before there was so much anger, so much need to fight for that bastard to be locked up behind bars and now that he is...well, now you have to start the process of moving on with your life. The end is just the beginning Rosalie. It may be a complete cliché to say it, but the rest of your life really does start now."

"The end is just the beginning huh?" she repeated, the corner of her mouth twitching up a little as she attempted to smile at me. It turned out more like a grimace, but I appreciated the fact that she was at least willing to even try smiling right now. She took a deep breath. "Okay, so where the hell do I go from here?"

I snorted at her assumption that I would have any sort of answer for that particular question. The shit that was happening in my own life was far less complicated than what was going on with Rose and I couldn't even sort that out. I found it slightly laughable that she would expect me to have the solution to her problems, no matter how much I wanted to give it to her. She looked at me strangely and then nodded her head in understanding not a moment later. For the first time in a while, I think we both acknowledged the fact that we had spent years searching for ourselves only to find that we still didn't know where the hell to even start looking. It would have been a little funny if we weren't both so fucking drained of any kind of happy emotion right now.

"I think you may have started off on the right foot today," I told her after a while, encroaching on a topic that I wasn't sure she was really ready to talk about. Her eyes flashed with an emotion I couldn't quite catch and she was off the bed and walking to the door before I even knew what was going on.

"Good night Ed," she said in a tone that would have told me to leave well enough alone even if she hadn't shut the door rather forcefully behind her as she walked out.

I blew out a breath and fell face forward onto the now empty bed before me. Rosalie was giving me whiplash with her changes in mood and topics of conversation. She had obviously opened up the topic about the baby she had miscarried, but now she didn't want to even entertain the idea of talking about it. Of course, it was her prerogative to change her mind when it came to discussing this particularly painful topic, but I wish she'd give me fair warning as to when it was and wasn't the right time. I knew that she would need to talk about the baby soon and maybe I wouldn't be the person she would talk to about it, but I wanted to be the person that at least made her realise that she was just putting off the inevitable and was ultimately going to make it worse.

I flipped over and gazed up at the ceiling without really seeing anything for a long time and then suddenly, I was being woken up by a loud blaring somewhere to the left of me. It was several moments before I actually understood that the obnoxious noise was my alarm clock. I had fallen asleep without even knowing it last night, somewhere between wondering whether I could leave Rosalie for the next few months and planning some way I could make her come to the set with me without making it seem like it was my idea to watch over her, I had slipped into a rather restless sleep. I looked at the now silent alarm, which was proclaimed that the time was 10:30. Rosalie and I needed to be at the airport in less than two hours and neither of us had even thought about packing. I sprang off the bed and ran into the shower, shaking off the sleep that was still wrapped around my tired brain.

I was dressed and packed with thirty minutes to go until we had to leave, but I hadn't heard a peep out of Rose since she walked out of my room last night. I found myself knocking on her closed, heavy wooden doors, wondering what kind of mood I would find her in. She called for me to come in and I was astounded by the fact that it looked as if Rosalie hadn't even attempted to pack. She was sitting in front of a desk, dressed for the day, but all her clothes and belongings were still strewn around the room. Normally Rose would have to tell me to get my shit together and then end up 'helping' me pack by throwing all the clean clothes she could find in my room into a bag.

"You are aware that we have to leave in about thirty minutes right?" I asked, wondering what she was actually doing on the laptop that she was still facing.

She shook her head at me. "No Edward, you have to leave in about thirty minutes," she corrected and I felt my jaw drop at the implication. There was _no way_ she would be staying here. "I'm going to stay for an extra week."

"Not a chance Rose," I said before I could really think any better of it.

Rosalie spun around so fast on the chair that I didn't entirely catch the movement, but I did see the daggers she was sending my way with her hard blue eyes. Rosalie Hale did not like being told what to do – or not do in this case. Even if she hadn't been thinking of staying behind, the fact that I'd just told her not to would have pretty much made her mind up for her.

"What was that Edward?" her voice had a dangerous lilt to it, warning me to tread very carefully lest I not value my manhood.

"I said you're not staying here," I repeated, rising to the challenge that she had thrown down. Obviously I didn't value my ability to make children very much or I would never be baiting the beast as I was now. "You can't possibly expect me to hop on that plane and just leave you here by yourself after all the shit that's happened over the past week."

"I must have missed the part where you became my fucking father Ed," she spat out. "Next time, leave me a voicemail and I'll know who to consult every time I have to make a decision." She turned her back to me again and continued tapping away on the laptop, though I doubted she was actually doing anything more than beating the shit out the keyboard. Well, it was better than her doing that to my face.

I walked further into the room, not taking the hint that she wanted me to leave her the hell alone right now. "You know that's not what I meant," I argued. I guess I was losing all sense of self-protection at the moment. "You can't possibly expect me to leave you here alone when I know some of what you've gone through this week and I know what this place does to you. What kind of friend would I be Rosalie?"

She shook her head and faced me again, eyes much softer and her face looking less like she wanted to kill me. "You're not being a bad friend Edward," she assured me. "You're realising that I'm a grown woman who can make perfectly sound decisions regarding her life. You're respecting those decisions and trusting that I know what I'm doing?"

"Do you?" I asked, still unwilling to let this matter lie. I didn't want her making rash decisions based off the many emotions she was still feeling right now. Emotive decisions were not always rational and they certainly didn't always go so well.

Her eyes blazed indignantly for a fraction of a second before they were soothing once more. "Look, last night you said that I needed to start the rest of my life and leave all this crap behind me and you're right, I do. But I in order for me to put this chapter of my life away, I have to put it all away, not just the Royce part. There are still so many loose threads of this tale to tie up Ed," she explained. I knew that she was talking not just about the baby she had lost, but also the parents who had cast her away.

"I'll stay," I offered, knowing that my doing so would mean that I would be giving up the role that I had so badly wanted to get. Yet, movie roles weren't real and Rosalie was – our friendship meant a great deal more to me than doing this film. Besides, I wanted to be there when she saw this thing to the end. I wanted to witness her triumphant moment because nobody deserved one more than Rosalie and to be honest, I wanted to see that there was actually some sense of fairness in the world.

She shook her head and took my hand. "No you won't," she countered and I was just about to open my mouth to argue when she started speaking again. "Look I appreciate the fact that you'd walk away from this film for me, really I do, but it's not necessary and I don't want you to do it. You've already done enough by being here with me this week. I need to do some of these things on my own Edward. You can't be with me all the time. You can't keep saving me."

Was that what I'd been trying to do? Was I trying to be the knight in shining armour that Rosalie so deserved? I didn't know, but she was obviously ready to go this alone and she didn't want me to be here. Still, it didn't exactly sit well with me that she'd be without someone on her side whilst she dealt with a lot of people that had torn her to pieces for several years. I told her as much and she completely blind-sided me by telling me that Esme, of all people, was flying in within a day or two to help her out with some things. I wondered at her choice of support system, but Rosalie only told me that Esme understood in a way I never could and that it was a story that I would have to find out from the woman herself.

So at twelve thirty in the afternoon, I stood at a check-in desk at Heathrow airport with my bags and without my best friend. I still wasn't entirely comfortable with the fact that Rosalie was staying in London, but obviously she had a journey to go on that I couldn't be a part of. I had to wonder if I had a similar kind of trip ahead of me.

*

**BPOV**

Being woken up at six thirty in the morning after a day of basically doing nothing but recovering from a mighty hang over was not the greatest start to my day. If anyone else but Edward had called me that early, I would have actually just put the phone down, but I supposed I could give him a break since he was operating in a completely different time zone to me. Our conversation was completely insane – going from teasing and light-hearted one minute to some serious reflecting the next. It wasn't until I actually got off the phone with him that I realised that was pretty much the first time we'd had a conversation that actually hinted at something else in our lives beyond that we had each shown the other. It was extremely off, but I kind of got a feeling around Edward that he just...he understood things about me that I didn't myself have insight into. I felt like he _'got me'_, whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. Sometimes when we talked, I got this feeling that he understood something that I wasn't even aware I was telling him. Far from freaking me the hell out, I found it kind of freeing. It was nice that there was someone else in the world who understood the chaos that was my mind, especially since the majority of the time I had trouble deciphering it.

It was odd how close Edward and I were getting from a distance of nearly six thousand miles. Strangely enough, sometimes I felt a lot more comfortable talking to Edward on the phone, or via text, than I did when we were actually together. There was something disarming about the man that made me question myself whenever I was around him. It was still there when I wasn't around him, but it was a lot easier to gather my thoughts when he wasn't looking at me. Edward confused the hell out of me and I didn't know whether to be intrigued or frightened by that fact. Did I want to be confused? I didn't think I did, but it was kind of fun to be kept on my toes all the time, whether or not Edward knew he was actually doing that.

This morning's conversation gave me something to think about, as it seemed all my trans-Atlantic conversations with Edward were prone to doing. He pointed out that maybe the complexity of life was just part of the voyage one had to go through to make everything worthwhile. If everything came so easily, how the hell would anyone ever appreciate the end result? How this applied to my Mom and me, I didn't have a clue, but at least I could find comfort in the fact that maybe this was not the be all and end all of our relationship. Maybe years down the line, we'd look back on this time and laugh at how distant we had once been towards each other. Well, that's kind of what I hoped anyway. The only problem was, I didn't know the steps to take that would get us from where we were now to where we could be in the future.

I lay in bed for a solid hour and a half thinking about the whole situation between my mother and I and what on earth I could do to even begin to rectify it. The one big problem I had was that I didn't exactly know _what_ I needed to fix. I knew that at the moment, we were on either side of a wedge eerily similar to the Grand Canyon, but I didn't know how the wedge got there in the first place. Was it something I did or something she did? Was it even a question of fault? I didn't have a solid place to start to repair the damage that had been done between us, but this was probably the first time in a long time that I really wanted to get to the bottom of things. Two days ago, Renee had more or less taken the first baby step towards regaining whatever it was that we had lost. Surely it was now my turn to offer an olive branch.

Having made a decision, I grabbed my cell, which was still lying next to me where I had left it after my conversation with Edward ended. I dialled the second number on my speed dial and hope to god that my boyfriend would understand why exactly I was skipping out on the plans that I myself had made with him today. I was originally planning to take a hike and have a picnic with Jacob at the spot where we'd had our first official date, but I figured that right now, I had more important things to do. Not that Jake wasn't important to me, but my mother had been in my life for far longer than Jake had and it was that relationship right now that I really needed to concentrate on. Besides, Jake and I were fine now. We'd spent a lot of time together and talking openly about the problems our relationship had been having lately.

"Hey babe," Jake greeted before a yawn broke free from his mouth.

"Hey, sorry did I wake you?" I remembered that it was only around 8 o'clock after all and that had Edward not called me at an unreasonable hour, I would have probably still been asleep myself. I really should have thought about that before making this phone call.

"Yeah," Jake admitted. "But I'm sure I can find a way for you to make it up to me later." His voice was suggestive and I felt about ten times worse for the news that I was going to give him.

I took a deep breath and just prepared to tell him the truth. "I think I may be making a lot of things up later," I started. "I kind of have to cancel our plans today."

"What?!" Well, he certainly didn't sound either tired or horny now. Pissed and confused would probably cover it though. "What do you mean you have to _kind of_ cancel our plans today?"

"Well, by kind of I mean completely," I confessed finally, steeling myself for the shouting I was sure would come. Jake had a temper issue, for sure. Not that he'd ever hit me or anything, but he shouted a lot for about half a minute before he calmed down and everything was once again okay. He had a very short fuse, but he was completely harmless and he never held a grudge. Case in point, his forgiving me so easily for lying to him for months about the whole moving in together thing.

"Are you actually going to give me any kind of explanation in this conversation Bella, or do I have to wait three months before you give me the details?" Okay so maybe he wasn't as over the whole co-habiting thing as I thought.

"Jesus, just chill the fuck out Jake," I tell him firmly because even if I did deserve to do a little more apologising and making up, I also had a very short fuse and I didn't exactly appreciate the passive aggressive comments he was making right now. "I'm cancelling because I have to talk to my Mom about some things alright?"

That shut him up. For a long while neither of us said anything and I could tell just from the silence that Jacob was not only surprised by my revelation, but also feeling about two inches tall right now. Good! He should feel that small. I wouldn't feel bad about wanting to take steps to recover my relationship with the woman that gave birth to me. If I had to cancel plans with my boyfriend for that to happen, I was going to cancel plans with my boyfriend.

"Christ, I'm such a fucking idiot," Jake said finally. I said nothing to disagree with him because he acted like a fucking idiot. "I'm sorry Bella. Of course you should cancel our plans to talk to your Mom. Why the sudden plan of action?"

I took a deep breath, calming myself down and talking myself out of the irrational need I had to just put the phone down on him. Sometimes, I still kind of got the urge to act like a spoilt, spiteful fifteen year old, but most of the time, I reeled it in. "She started talking to me yesterday," I tell him for the first time. I didn't really have much of a chance yesterday to tell Jake about the very strange conversation my mother and I had on the driveway. Between his teasing me about getting piss drunk with Alice and me just begging to be put back into bed, we couldn't find time for meaningful conversation. Not that I would have been able to have any kind of meaningful conversation yesterday anyway, whether or not I was awake.

"I didn't think she'd stopped talking to you?"

"I don't think _'pass the salt'_ counts as talking when she's my mother Jake," I tell him, sarcasm pouring forth before I could stop it. "I mean she tried talking to me about something other than what was going on around the house or my father or Sam. She actually asked me whether I was okay after she saw us fighting the other night."

"Oh, she saw that huh?" he asked and I knew right away that he wasn't exactly glad about the fact that my mother had witnessed something like that. He already knew she didn't exactly have warm and fuzzy feelings towards him – she definitely didn't need any more ammunition.

"She saw the after effects and put two and two together to make four," I told him. "Anyway, the point was that she actually attempted to talk to me and I thought I'd strike whilst the iron is hot, so to speak."

"What exactly are you going to say to her?" Jacob asked. It was a very simple question, but I had absolutely no idea what the answer was. I had no idea what I _should_ even say to her, I only knew that I really had to try talking to her again. I got the feeling that if I didn't take this opportunity, I wouldn't have another for a very long time.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I just...I need to do this Jake. If nothing else, I need answers as to what the hell was supposed to have happened between us. I really...I kind of want my Mom back and I know that sounds like such a childish thing to say-"

"No!" Jacob protested strongly, so strongly in fact that I had to hold the phone a few inches from my ear to prevent the perforation of my ear drums. "No. It's perfectly understandable that you want your relationship back with your Mom Bella. Never beat yourself up for that. It doesn't matter how old we are. Our parents are our parents. We never stop needing them or wanting their approval."

"I guess," I agreed, knowing he was completely right. Jacob and his parents kind of had the relationship that I'd had with mine years before. "Anyway, I just want to know what happened really Jake, so that I can start making things right again." It wasn't really that I wanted my mother's approval of my life and how I led it; it was just that I wanted her to be a part of my life and I wanted to be part of hers. I hated the feeling that we were now strangers, that when I finally moved out of the house, we'd have no reason to interact on a regular basis. Maybe that was part of the reason why I didn't want to move in with Jacob yet, why I didn't really want to leave my childhood home.

"I understand babe," he assured me and although I had no doubts that he did, it wasn't the same as with Edward. I hated myself for thinking it, for comparing the comprehension my boyfriend had of my life with someone who I hardly knew myself. Yet, I couldn't help it as the thought crossed my mind and nor could I deny it. Jacob may have understood what I was trying to do, what I was trying to tell him, but he couldn't understand the things I couldn't express. I guess it was unfair of me to expect him to. I always hated girls who expected their boyfriends to be mind readers when they were unhappy with something, but I guess it was just too easy to make the comparison between the two conversations I'd had with two very different people in my life.

I ended the call with Jake quite quickly after the subconscious comparison I'd made between him and Edward. Whether it was out of guilt or frustration at myself, I didn't exactly know, but I felt about a million times worse when Jake told me that he was just a phone call away should I need him. That man really was too good to me especially right now when I seemed to be having more issues than the LA Times. Our relationship was very one-sided these days and I didn't know how to redress that balance. It wasn't like I loved Jake any less than he loved me, or any less than I used to, but I guess I'd been letting other things get in the way whereas Jake had always put me – had always put _us_ first. Still, it wasn't exactly like I could be expected to put my boyfriend before the woman who carried me in her womb for nine months before enduring a painful twelve hour delivery so that I could be introduced to the world.

I knew my Mom would be alone in the house today – today was her 'meditation' day. My Dad would be out of the house by nine in the morning to get to work and my brother was still in Washington even though his semester was finished. Today, my Mom usually did a few bits of housework and then spent the rest of the day having some 'alone time'. This usually consisted of taking a very long bath with fragrances and oils that my father couldn't stand the smell of before doing yoga in the living room for an hour. She would then start cooking dinner, something fantastic that my father would think she bought, but I knew she really spent two hours working on. I knew this because it's what we did together when I was still fourteen and we still had a relationship beyond awkward exchanges on the drive. Back then, we both very much looked forward to these days together because with the time I spent away from home, this was one of the little things that just reminded me that I was still a kid; I was still part of a normal family.

I figured the best time to go to her would be just after her relaxing bath, but before the yoga. I didn't want to go before she'd had time to relax, but I didn't want my father to know about this little meeting either so I didn't want to interrupt her plans for dinner. It wasn't as if my Dad didn't know that my Mom and I were having problems, but he wasn't one to force the issue and he definitely didn't want to get in the middle of the two of us. My father wasn't exactly the most present parent of the household. It wasn't that he wasn't there for Sam and I when we needed him, just that we'd kind of grown up without Dad noticing we had. My father was a script writer and for the past few years he'd been the head script writer for a TV show and even when he wasn't in the office, he would spend a lot of his time working alone. He was always available when we had problems, he was just never the main port of call – well, until about three years ago anyway. These days my father and I had a much closer relationship and he'd been subtly encouraging me to talk to my Mom for a while, but he'd never pushed and I had been grateful for that once upon a time. Now, I kind of wished he had pushed me into it because surely this would have been easier earlier on, when there wasn't three years of confusion on top of the initial insult.

It was one thing to make up my mind of _when_ I would go, it was quite another to know what to do with myself whilst waiting for the 'perfect' time. In the three hours that I spent waiting for the right time to talk to my Mom, I cleaned every single inch of my apartment and read every script that I had been neglecting of late. I answered every email and listened to every voicemail and I was still left with thirty minutes just twiddling my thumbs and trying not to talk myself out of actually having the conversation I was already three years too late in having. Walking through the back door of my own house was more nerve wracking than any audition I'd ever done. My stomach felt as if it was being put through a wringer and my palms were so sweaty, I was actually surprised I could turn the knob in order to open the door. My mother would be in the living room, just about to set up for her yoga session. She didn't hear me as I approached and I had to clear my throat to make her aware of my presence.

She turned around with surprise all over her face, which increased even further when she saw me standing in the doorway. It had been a long time since I'd willingly sought out her company and an even longer time since I joined her today of all days. However, before she could question my appearance there and shatter all the confidence and bravado that I was displaying right now, I told her that we needed to talk.

"What about Bella?" she questioned, her voice tight and her eyes evasive. She was obviously as uncomfortable about this as I was which made me feel infinitely better and much more nervous.

"You know what about," I insisted. She glanced at me briefly before shaking her head and turning around to face the TV. That just pissed me off. I wanted to talk about something important, something that may or may not salvage our relationship and she couldn't even look me in the eye. "I just want some answers Mom. I feel like we're both walking on egg shells around each other and I have no idea why? When the hell did you stop being my mother?"

Renee turned to look at me so quickly that I actually took a step back even though we were on opposite ends of the room. Her eyes were burning into me and I suddenly felt like a naughty five-year old that had been caught colouring on the brand new white walls. "When did I stop being your mother?!" she breathed out, her nostrils flaring and her face flushing a very unattractive red colour. "I never stopped being your god damn mother Bella; you just stopped caring that I was. You suddenly decided one day that you didn't need me anymore and then I just stopped existing to you. You didn't care one bit about my opinions Bella. You didn't want to hear what I had to tell you anymore. So you come here and ask me when I stopped being your mother? When the hell did you stop being my daughter?"

I heard the words she was saying to me, but I didn't understand them. I thought I had a vague idea of how this meeting was going to go. I didn't think either of us really knew what had happened between us and maybe that was still true, but my mother sure seemed to think that this was my fault. I tried to wrack my memory so that I could match her accusations up with my past actions, but there was nothing in my head except for the words she had said. When did I stop being her daughter? Had I stopped? Was I such an awful person that I had shut my Mom out of my life without even realising it and then tried to blame her for it? I thought this talk would give me answers, but it had so far left me with just more questions – questions that I didn't really want to ask myself. I didn't say anything, merely looked at her, eye brimming with tears I didn't want to shed. I saw Renee's anger abate to be replaced with something very similar to defeat, but more in keeping with despair and I felt as if a knife was being driven into me.

In the three or so years that my mother and I had stopped having any kind of relationship, she had never looked at me in the way that she was doing now. She was looking at me like I was a stranger, like I was someone she no longer knew. It was a pretty shitty feeling when your own mother – the woman that gave me life – was looking at me like she no longer knew who I was. How the hell was I supposed to know myself when _she_ didn't know me anymore? I felt like I was watching someone else's life unfolding before my eyes, not living my own. What the hell had happened here?

"When you first started in this business Bella, I was so scared that not too far down the line you'd forget who you really were and what your father and I taught you was important," Renee recounted, her quiet voice clear in the silent air between us. "I was so proud that you managed to go so long without it affecting you, but I was wrong. You changed before my very eyes and it wasn't until I saw blatant proof of it myself that I realised it. I just don't understand what happened to you Bella. I didn't understand then and I still don't understand now." Renee's voice broke on her final words and tears slipped out of her eyes, but rather than being upset right along with her, I was just confused as hell. I didn't have a clue what it was she was alluding to.

"What are you talking about?" I asked her finally, biting my tongue to keep from calling her Renee. Obviously calling my mother by her first name would not do anything to dispel her belief that I didn't regard her as a parental figure any longer.

Renee let out a snort of laughter and brought her eyes up to meet mine. I was shocked at what I saw in them – pain, acceptance and blatant disappointment. "I heard what you said to Kyle Ludlow three and a half years ago Bella. I heard the entire god damn conversation."

All the air in my lungs left them immediately. I felt as if a truck had just ploughed into me and if I hadn't already been leaning against the wall, I may have stumbled back several steps.

Oh fuck.

* * *

AN: Okay, so once again, I apologise for the complete lack of updates for the past couple of months. I would have posted a note explaining why, but I really hate it when people update with a note and I think it's a real chapter, so yeah. Anyway, the explanation (because there are no excuses) is that I was in the last year of my degree and my dissertation and my finals took away my life for a bit - seriously, there are friends I haven't seen in months who think I've just vanished from the face of the earth. It was all worth it though because I got my results and I am VERY HAPPY with the outcome. So, yeah, I am sorry (again!) and I hope you are still reading this and enjoy this chapter and the progression of the story. Obviously Edward is heading back to LA and he and Bella will be reunited, but they have such a long way to go yet. Sigh....


	11. Chapter 11 The Reconnection

**Disclaimer: I don't anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves. There is also a small scenario in here from a very well-known TV show. Can you guess which one?**

**Chapter 11: BPOV**

It was a glorious June morning in New York City. The sun was just beginning to really give out heat and the streets of Manhattan were about to be filled with early morning commuters, rushing into work with a coffee in one hand, a briefcase in the other and their cell phones wedged firmly between their shoulder and ear. It was a scene that was used in the background of a lot of movies, but one which definitely had its roots in real-life observations. It was barely seven o'clock when I woke up and sat on the balcony of my apartment building, but already the streets were being lined with yellow cabs and people were bustling around the sidewalks. I had been to New York only a handful of times before and not for any extended length of time. It wasn't exactly my favourite place in the world, with its constant bustle and energetic pace of life. LA may have been crazy, but the west coast as a whole was much more relaxed than the east. There was just a different way of life here that didn't exactly suit the girl who had been born and bred in the Golden State. Now though, the difference in the atmosphere and the pace here was really helping me and I was beginning to think that the next three months here would do me the world of good. Certainly, living someone else's life and being in someone else's head for a period of time couldn't hurt me right now. My own life seemed to be hanging on by a thread right now and I _really_ needed a break from it all. Some people may call it running away, but I just thought of it as having a distraction in the form of my job, like everyone else.

I had gotten to New York late Friday night, leaving a day before I had originally planned to and leaving everything behind that I couldn't take dealing with at that precise moment. After my disastrous 'talk' with my mother, I cried for what felt like hours before packing up my things and heading for the airport only making a phone call to Sue to tell her that I'd be in New York within a few hours and that I needed the keys to the apartment I would be staying in for the duration of our shoot there. She tried to ask why I had changed my mind, but I hung up before she could get the question out of her mouth. I had only let Jake know of my sudden departure and change in location when I actually arrived at the apartment and set up my computer. It was a short email telling him that I'd flown to New York early and that I was sorry. I didn't explain what had happened, mostly because I was so ashamed of it that I wanted it cleared from my mind. I hadn't yet checked, two days later, whether he had replied to me yet. There was no other way for anyone back home to personally get hold of me at the moment because I had switched off my phone as soon as I landed at Newark. I didn't want to think anymore about what happened with my mother. I just didn't want to be me for a while.

I think Jake may have called Sue because she came and checked on me daily, but so far I had refused to let her in. It wasn't as if I told her to go away, just that I always pretended to either be out or asleep when she knocked on the door. The truth of the matter was that I had gotten very little sleep since I came here and I hadn't actually set foot outside of the apartment, not even to get food. If Sue was pissed off at me and thinking about firing me from the movie, she did a very good job hiding it when she came to talk to my door. I had almost relented and let her know that I was actually inside once, last night, but I still couldn't face answering questions about what happened to bring me here so suddenly. I didn't know exactly how much Jake had told her, if he had told her anything at all, and I didn't want to see her looking at me with pity in her eyes; I didn't deserve anyone's pity.

Today was the first day that we would be rehearsing with the rest of the cast and I was just looking forward to finally having something else to focus on. In the two days that I had shut myself off from the rest of the world, I had learned the entire script, not just my own lines, and I had once again read the poem that inspired it. I did research on the woman behind the character of Kristen Stewart only to find that there was very _little_ behind the character. I don't know exactly what I expected, but it seemed as if the public image of Kristen was the only one that actually existed. I wondered if this had something to do with her Manhattan socialite upbringing – after all, these people knew exactly how to keep things hidden should they need to. When you owned half of New York, it was quite easy to find a door behind which all of your secrets could be hidden. I still didn't know anything about the woman that I was supposed to be playing apart from what was written about her in the script and the poem. The newspaper articles about her marriage and her death revealed absolutely nothing of who she was, just _what_ she was.

I heard a knock on the door and opened it to who I thought was going to be my driver only to find Edward Cullen smiling uncertainly at me. I don't know if it was the time we'd spent away from each other, or because I literally hadn't seen anyone besides the pimply-faced delivery guy, but Edward looked amazing. When I first met him, I thought that his looks were unconventionally handsome, but this morning, Edward Cullen could have stepped right off the cover of GQ. I was astounded both by his presence and my reaction to it. Obviously being alone and without human company for about 48 hours was making me slightly insane. Thankfully, I would be around people from now on for several hours of everyday, which should dampen down the crazy – at least partially.

"Hey!" I greeted a tad a little over-enthusiastically. I didn't want him to ask any questions about why I was on the verge of become depressed, so obviously over-compensating with insane happiness was my only option. And I called myself an actress.

Edward looked a little taken aback by my effervescence, especially since it was only seven thirty in the morning and I had told him several times before that I was not a morning person. However, he was a better actor than I appeared to be and covered his surprised and confusion within moments, giving me an easy smile and a short hug.

"Hey to you too," he said as he let go of me. He invited himself into my apartment and shut the door behind him before I even realised that this was the first time we'd hugged in greeting. It was very odd; much more familiar a greeting than we were used to giving each other. I guess all the weird texting and late night/early morning trans-Atlantic phone calls meant that we were better friends now than we were before he left. Obviously 'better friends' also meant hugging each other.

"How was London?" I asked, following him inside my apartment and realising far too late that it wasn't really in any sort of state to be seen by other people. I had spent the weekend wallowing in my own misery and obsessing over the character that I was going to spend the next three months playing. There was absolutely no room in that crazy schedule to bother with things like cleaning.

"It was..." Edward trailed off thoughtfully before looking at me and smiling. "It was rainy." A generic answer that hid something he didn't want to tell me. Well, I guess we weren't exactly best friends yet. "Was it weird that I just hugged you back then?"

The laughter that escaped my mouth at that statement surprised me more than it did Edward. I was so shocked that he'd actually asked whether or not it was weird that he hugged me when he saw me that I laughed as a reflex. He looked at me like I'd grown an extra head, which honestly just made me laugh even harder. I was hysterical and obviously I'd lost what was left of my mind the past couple of days. Perhaps I should have taken Sue up on her offer to talk. Now it was too late and I had gone completely insane. Eventually, whether it was just catching, or whether Edward felt so uncomfortable that he didn't have a choice but join in, Edward started laughing with me and within ten minutes, we were both rolling around on my couch, clutching our middle and gasping for breath. It felt so good to laugh again that I almost forgot exactly what I'd been miserable about in the first place. Then of course that thought brought up a barrage of images from Friday afternoon and before I knew it, I was on the verge of tears. Luckily, I stopped myself from spiralling into a scary vortex of depression and just smiled tightly instead as Edward rode out his high.

"Jesus, what the hell have you been smoking here Bella?" Edward asked, still chuckling softly.

I smiled wider at him before turning around to head into the kitchen. I could stop myself from crying, but I had no doubt that one Edward saw my eyes brimming with tears, he'd know something wasn't quite right. "The question is what _haven't_ I been smoking in here," I teased, cringing at the way my voice sounded ever so slightly forced. I just had to hope that Edward hadn't known me long enough to notice the subtle changes in my tone of voice. That or he just wouldn't feel comfortable enough pointing them out. "So, really, how was merry old England?" I figured that the best way to stop him asking any questions I didn't want him to ask was by forcing him to answer something he obviously didn't want to. Deflection really was an art form.

"It was definitely still old," he answered still from the lunge area. "Though it wasn't all that merry this time." His answer was cryptic. Our entire relationship it seemed was littered with cryptic answers and questions that the other just wanted to avoid. Still, as confusing as it was sometimes to talk to Edward, it was also just a relief. Maybe it was because I was so busy trying to figure out what he was talking about most of the time that I didn't have time to think of anything else – he was definitely a good distraction.

"Always with the cryptic answers Edward," I commented, deciding to fix us up some coffee so that it wouldn't seem so weird that I'd just walked into the kitchen.

"That's what you love about me," he pointed out very astutely. Sometimes I swear the boy could fucking read my mind.

I snorted. "Love is a pretty strong word Mr. Cullen. In fact, _like_ is a pretty strong word in regards to me feelings about you. Tolerate is probably closer to the truth."

"Your words hurt Miss Swan," Edward admonished. "I would be more offended if I didn't know this was just a self-protection mechanism to stop yourself from falling in love with me."

I laughed outright at this statement and nearly poured the hot water all over the counter tops rather than into the cups I'd prepared. There was no way I would fall in love with Edward Cullen. My life was complicated enough. I didn't need someone else's complications on top of my own. I had a boyfriend right now whose own life was free from drama – though admittedly his very involvement with me meant that he had a little taste of the soap opera that was my life – and that was exactly what I wanted. I had a feeling that Edward's own life was just as complex as mine, maybe even more so. Otherwise, he wouldn't get me as much as he did and he certainly wouldn't keep giving me cryptic answers to quite straightforward questions.

"You know, I'd be more offended by you laughing at that if it hadn't happened to me several times before," he said, turning to face me as I walked back into the lounge area with two cups of steaming hot coffee grasped tightly in my hands. "I don't know what it is about the thought of falling in love with me that has women far and wide bursting into hysterics."

"It's obviously because you're horrendous looking, extremely boring and disturbingly stupid," I pointed out teasingly. "The mere notion of falling for you is making me vomit in my mouth a little bit."

Edward sighed heavily, head bowed in a very dramatic portrayal of despair. "I knew it," he proclaimed, his voice weighed down with defeat. "I can't believe you can even stand talking to me right now."

"They're paying me," I tell him smirking behind my cup. "It's quite a heavy sum of money too."

"It'd have to be."

We looked at each other and smiled. The teasing had given us back the rapport that we had developed before he left quite suddenly and it had taken my mind off my problems for a while at least. I think he must have noticed the fact that I had been on the verge of tears when I walked out of here, hence the stand up comedy routine. I was thankful that he was so perceptive and accepting, but then again, I had more or less granted him the same privacy by not asking any more about London. Something had obviously happened there that he didn't want to talk about and the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced it had something to do with Rosalie. I mean she was the one that was English after all, so if anyone had business going there on short notice, it would be her right?

We talked for several more minutes before someone another knock on my door signalled the arrival of my actual driver. Today, we were going to be seeing some of the sets that the team had spent the past couple of weeks building up here. We were also going to be running through some of the scenes that had been re-written since the cast had last been together. It wasn't uncommon for the writers to change scenes whenever they felt like it wasn't working for whatever they were trying to convey. I had gotten some of the changes a couple of days ago, but I had no doubt that there would be more today. There was one scene in the movie, the scene where Robert begs Kristen not to marry the man that would eventually become her husband, which I still didn't think was right. I wanted to talk to Edward about it before I talked to Sue and the writers about it. I didn't feel as if the desperation in the scene was equal for both parties and in my mind, I think both of them would have been pretty affected in the scene. The poem certainly made it seem as if Robert was far more broken in that scene than his lover was, but surely if their love was so epic and so deep, she would have felt like her soul was being ripped in half too. I didn't think that she would have been as cold about asking him to let her go as the scene portrayed it so far.

Sue was already there with the rest of the cast and crew when Edward and I joined them. She stopped talking when we walked into the room and I felt her eyes follow me all the way from the door to where everyone was standing, but I refused to meet them and left my sunglasses on even though we were now indoors. She was apparently giving a welcoming, inspirational speech to everyone involved, about how we would work together as a team to bring this story to life in a way it deserved to be. She highlighted everyone's importance to the production and underlined the importance of teamwork to the outcome of the finished product. Sue was a very _unifying_ director. She made everyone working on the film feel just as important as everyone else, which was how it should be. A film was only successful when everyone working on it remembered that they were part of something bigger than themselves. So many actors and actresses in the business got so caught up in themselves and their 'star power' that they forgot the stunt co-ordinators that made sure they didn't break their necks; they looked over the editors that made sure they didn't look like completely idiots. Actors were really a very small part of the making of a film – the real hard work happened behind the scenes, done by people that rarely got even so much as a 'thank you' during awards season.

After the welcome speech, Sue made her way over as if to talk to me, but I quickly hid behind Edward and watched as someone else tracked her down and got her tied up in something. Edward noticed my very strange behaviour, but did nothing other than raise an eyebrow at me and continued talking to Tyler about some open mike night that some of the cast were apparently thinking of heading to tonight. It was the first I'd heard about it, but apparently Edward had already turned down the invitation because Tyler was trying to convince him with a promise of plenty of 'hot young rich girls' hanging from his every word. Edward's answering laugh shocked me because I was sure that he'd be much more receptive to the invitation once willing and available women were mentioned. I mean what single man wouldn't be. Unless of course Edward wasn't single. This once again brought the question up in my mind about his relationship with Rosalie. She was the only girl I had seen Edward spend any time with or even mention. Surely if he didn't want to meet attractive women, it was because he already had one he was pretty committed to. Well, at least my co-star wasn't some man-whoring prick. Shame the same thing couldn't be said about Tyler, who was rumoured to have hooked up with at least three of the girls in his last film.

Before I knew it, I was wrapped up in rehearsing a scene with Jessica and a few others in the cast with smaller parts. We were rehearsing a scene that would take place in Kristen's bedroom, the one where Jessica's character, Kate, found out about the secret romance going on between Kristen and Rob. It was strange that I found very little about Kate and Kristen's relationship in all my research. It was known that they had been friends for a very long time, growing up with each other and definitely mixing in the same sort of circles. However, I never got the impression that they were particularly close. In the film, it almost seemed as if Kate was the sister that Kristen never had, but I didn't really believe that in real life, Kristen would have ever trusted her with a secret of this magnitude. Or maybe she would because in real life Kate Stevenson had never given a single thing away about Kristen or their relationship after her death. The most she had ever said was that she had lost a good friend and that was at Kristen's funeral years ago. Ever since then, not a peep had been heard of from the woman, though from time to time people liked to ask her about her friend's mysterious death. I was sure that she would be hounded for months when the film eventually came out.

_Kristen was bored. She was sitting in her room with some of her closest friends talking about what they had done over the summer and their plans for school. Two months ago, this conversation would have taken up all her attention and she would be giggling and making innuendos quite happily like the rest of the girls, but right now, she was just plain bored. She wished that she had never agreed to this stupid sleep over in the first place. It had been Kate's idea to have her host it because it had been so long since everyone had been together and once they went off to college, who knew when they would be in the same place again. It had all been fine before he found out that the secret gig they had been planning wasn't going to be on tonight because some of the wrong people had found out about it. At that point, she didn't have a better choice than to be sitting with her friends and talking about things that really didn't matter to her. However, when he text her two hours ago telling her that he was free now, she very nearly called everyone to cancel. All she wanted to do was be with him. It had been a week since she had last seen him and she missed him so much that it was almost becoming a physical ache._

_Kristen had never felt this kind of longing for someone before, but it had been there from the very moment she laid eyes on him. It was as if her whole world had shifted so that he became the very centre around which she rotated and surprisingly, she was okay with that. What she was _not_ okay with however, was the endlessly mind-numbing conversations about European holidays and summer flings that her friends were talking about. It never changed with them. All they cared about was blowing as much money as they could and finding as many guys to piss off their parents as possible. It all led to the same thing – they would marry some bland, boring son of their father's biggest rival or oldest friend. That was how their world worked. There were no choices made unless it benefitted the family and the business. Everything was rational, methodical, calculated and strategic. There was no room for falling in love in the Upper East Side of New York City._

_If she was perfectly honest with herself, Kristen was just like these girls, or so she had been until about two months ago. She hadn't seen an alternative other than the life her parents had shown her and drilled into her since she could understand it. Then she walked into a small Parisian bar and she had seen her past, present and future in a pair of deep blue eyes that burned themselves into her brain for all of eternity. The moment she fell in love with Rob, Kristen saw a very different path to the one she was expected to take and it both scared and excited her._

"_Kris, are you even listening to anything we're saying?" Kate asked her pointedly. She had been watching her best friend all night and Kristen's mind had definitely not been where her body was._

_Kristen shook her head clear of thoughts of Rob and looked at her friends sheepishly. "Sorry guys," she apologised. "I completely spaced out just then."_

"_You've been spacing out all night," Catherine pointed out. "What's on your mind Kris?"_

"_Nothing," Kristen insisted, mentally berating herself for causing these girls to become suspicious. Her friends had the same kind of noses for gossip as a shark had for blood. She didn't need them thinking she had something to hide because they would dig around until they found something. Kristen did not need her parents to know about Rob because they would go insane and forbid her from seeing him. Not that she would ever comply with that, but she didn't her life to be made harder. "I'm just still a little tired. I guess I haven't adjusted from the time difference yet."_

"_Oh, that's right," Cecilia said. "You only got back from London last night right? How silly of us. We should have re-scheduled."_

_Yes, Kristen couldn't help but agree, they should have rescheduled. If she had thought about being jet-lagged before everyone came over, she could have used that as an excuse and she would be with Rob right now instead of trying to find excuses to explain away her non-participation in the conversation. Kate narrowed her eyes at her friend and Kristen avoided her questioning gaze. Kate knew her far too well and she knew that Kris hadn't suffered from jet-lag since she was twelve. _

"_Do you have the cut of the new Tom Cruise film yet Cat?" Cecilia was asking now. Cat's father partly owned the management company that handled Tom Cruise and several other extremely important celebrities on both coasts. Hence, Catherine often came into school boasting about the new film or album she had before anyone else._

"_Oooh, yeah, I totally forgot about it. I have it in my bag here." _

_Ten minutes later everyone in the room was engrossed in Tom Cruise's latest movie adventure. Kristen, on the other hand, kept looking at her phone and wondering what Rob was doing right now. She wondered if there was any way at all that she could slip out of the house for even a little while just to go and see him. She only needed an hour; any amount of time would be better than not seeing him at all for another couple of days. After her left New York he'd be going to Boston and she knew it would be near impossible for her to see him so often then. _

_Kate had now seen her best friend check her phone for the sixth time in ten minutes. Obviously she was waiting for something and when it started to vibrate, she watched Kristen almost jump off the bed and race out of the room to answer it. Everyone else in the room was too busy swooning over the young Mr. Cruise to notice their friend's extremely odd behaviour, but Kate had been seeing a lot of Kristen's odd behaviour lately. Ever since she got back from her European holiday, it had been like she'd been on a different planet half the time. She didn't engage fully in anything they did now and her mind was always clearly somewhere else. Kate waited for a beat and then followed her friend out of the room being led by the sound of her hushed voice._

"_...miss you too," she heard Kristen say into her phone. Kate had followed her all the way to the other side of the house, near the library entrance. Kate was staring at Kristen's back, wondering whether she should really listen to this conversation. After all, she owed her friend some privacy and obviously Kris didn't want anyone to know about whoever she was secretly seeing._

"_I think I can get away for like thirty minutes max," Kristen said into the phone, her voice holding just a little resentment at the fact that she could only get away for that long. "Where are you?"_

"_What now?" Kristen spun around too fast for Kate to hide, but she didn't miss the way her best friend's eyes went from joyous to shocked and a little bit pissed off. Neither one of them said anything for what felt like hours, but really could only have been a few seconds and then Kristen just walked right past Kate, telling whoever she was on the phone with that she'd see them in ten minutes. _

_Kate quickly walked behind her, wanting to stay far enough back to not interrupt the conversation, but close enough to be able to catch Kris before she walked back into the room with everyone else. She didn't know if she wanted to apologise to her or demand to know who exactly Kris had been talking to on the phone. She was a little annoyed that her friend wouldn't tell her about this new guy when every other time before, Kristen would call her first so that she could gush about her boyfriend. Annoyed turned into worry rather quickly as Kate ran over all the possible reasons why Kristen would be hiding her obviously burgeoning romance from even her best friend. _

"_Kris," Kate called finally, just before Kristen turned the corner and headed back to her room. "Just wait a second will you, we need to talk."_

_Kristen shook her head, but slowed down considerably from her power walking pace. "There's nothing to talk about Kate," she insisted. "I'll pretend you weren't spying on me and you can pretend not to have ever heard that conversation. Win-win situation all around no?"_

_Kate pulled her arm so that she would turn around to look at her. "What's with you lately?"_

_Kristen shrugged and avoided her eyes by looking straight over her shoulder. "I don't know what you're talking about."_

"_Ever since you got back from Europe you've been acting all sorts of strange," Kate persisted. "You don't have any interest in any of the things we both used to like doing. You're mind is always somewhere else and you're having secret meetings and phone calls that you won't even tell _me_ about?"_

_Kristen narrowed her eyes and finally met Kate's frustrated ones. "Maybe I won't tell you about them because they're none of your damn business Kate, have you ever thought of that? Where the hell is the law that I have to tell you every little thing I do?"_

_Kate was shocked at the malice in her friend's tone. Kristen had never been like this with her and the fact that she was acting weirdly just confirmed for Kate that something huge was happening here. Something huge and not entirely desirable. "Maybe the fact that we're best friends Kristen," Kate answered back, not being able to hide the hurt from her voice or her face. _

_Growing up in the circles they did, Kate was no stranger to bitchy and back-handed comments. She regularly received such comments from people she called friends, but she never thought she'd see the day when Kristen would be so cold towards her. They had shared everything together and the girl in front of her had actually told her when she lost her virginity within an hour of doing so. Too much information, for sure, but Kate had thought they had the type of friendship where they both shared everything with the other one. It looked like either she had been incredibly wrong over the past few years, or something major had changed._

"_Best friends don't listen in on each other's _private_ conversations Kate," Kristen pointed out before turning back around and heading to her bedroom, no doubt to change. _

_Kate stood outside wondering what the hell to do. Obviously confronting Kristen in the state of mind she was in right now was _not_ the best idea, but she was still incredibly worried that her friend was involved in something she should definitely not be. Kristen wasn't exactly known for wise decisions, especially when it came to dating and it seemed as if there was definitely a boy involved here. It was only last year that Kate had to cover for her as she insisted on having an affair with a married teacher at their school. Needless to say that ended in heartbreak on all sides and that teacher discreetly being forced to leave not only the school, but the state. Kristen tended to love being rebellious when it came to dating, probably for the same reason a lot of their peers did – to get it all out of the way before they were married off to young men of the _'right breed'_. If Kristen felt that Kate couldn't be trusted with this new guy, it must have been worse than the married teacher and Kate didn't even want to think of what could have been worse than that._

_By the time Kristen had left her room and sneaked around the viewing room so that none of the other girls would see her, Kate had already made up her mind about what she was going to do and taken up the correct vantage point with which to do it. If Kristen was meeting the mystery guy, she would have told him to come around the side entrance of the building where there was a low enough ledge for Kris to climb onto and then jump off of. It had been used many times by both of them to sneak out when Kristen's parents had expressly forbidden them to set foot outside the house. She watched as the familiar figure of her best friend, dressed in dark jeans and a dark hooded top that Kate didn't even think Kristen owned, jumped down the ledge and into the waiting arms of some guy leaning on a motorcycle. It was far too dark, and Kate was much too far away to be able to see the guy's face clearly, but when they zipped under a streetlight, the light brown hair and the angular jaw of the stranger could not be hidden and Kate heard herself gasping. _

_It was the guy from Paris._

*

Rehearsal was insane, but I absolutely loved the sets that they'd built, especially Kristen's house. They had recreated an entire library, though the books in them weren't real. The library was the place where one my favourite scenes of the entire movie took place – the scene where Kristen tells Rob she loves him for the first time. I had seen pictures of the real thing and the replica was an exact match, though it didn't quite have the distinctive musty smell of old books that I was sure the real one would give off. Then again, we weren't filming a scratch-and-sniff movie so it didn't really matter. I wandered around the library set and wondered if Kristen had spent much time here. She didn't strike me as the type of girl who would spend hours with these musty old books dreaming of living another life, or at least not in her youth. Whatever the truth of the rumours and stories were linking her to Robert Pattinson, there was a definite change in Kristen Stewart from the privileged, spoilt little rich girl to the rather reclusive woman. In all my research about her, the way she lived her life had definitely changed in the years that she was rumoured to have spent with the rocker.

"You look extremely deep in thought," Sue's voice interrupted thoughts about the girl – and woman – I would be portraying.

I nodded, but didn't say anything. She had wanted to talk to me all morning, but we had both been too busy for her to really have a chance. I was being ridiculously childish in avoiding her, but I wasn't ready to hear what she had to say yet and that being the case, I knew I'd snap at her for absolutely no reason. I just wanted Sue to be my director, not my boyfriend's friend. I didn't want her to interfere with this because it was none of her business, no matter how well-meaning she may have been.

"Look, Bella," Sue started and I sensed some hesitancy in her voice, as if she was doing this against her better judgement. "Jake's been calling me non-stop since Friday night asking me to check up on you and asking how you are."

"You can tell him to email me then," I told her. "I emailed him on Friday night as soon as I got here."

"Do you want to talk about what the hell is going on with you? That boy's worried sick about you."

"It's nothing Sue," I tell her, keeping my head turned towards the books that held nothing but empty pages. "It's just a personal issue at home that I don't particularly want to talk about and it won't affect my work so there's no issue here, I promise."

Sue gave out a very weary sounding sigh and I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes even though she couldn't see me. I could understand that she was worried about the film's production, but she didn't need to make it seem as if she had all the problems of the world on her shoulders. I was a complete professional and sure, she hadn't worked with me before, but she should have at least known that about me. I had never before let personal issues affect my work and I wasn't going to start now when this was possibly the biggest movie I had done to date. I waited for Sue to say something to me, but she surprised me by walking towards me and actually standing in front of me so I could no longer avoid her searching eyes.

"I'm not just worried about the film Bella," she told me in what I assumed was supposed to be a soothing manner, but I actually found rather annoying. "Jacob is a very good friend of mine, which means that you are, by extension. Of course I don't want the lead in my movie to be upset, but I don't want you as a person to be upset either."

If it had been any other time, I would have appreciated her hands-on approach, caring, but right now she kind of reminded me of the fact that I didn't have this kind of relationship with my mother. I was a little bitter about the whole thing and even though I knew I shouldn't be taking it out on Sue really, I couldn't help doing just that. I nodded and left quite abruptly, not saying anything for fear of telling her to mind her own business. Somehow, I sensed that wouldn't go down well with her. I walked away from the set without any sort of plan as to where I was going to go, only knowing that it had to be far away from here. Well, as far as one can go on foot within the two hours I had off for lunch. I wanted to head towards Central Park, but I was just outside of Manhattan and I didn't exactly know which way I had to go to get there. Obviously the two days I spent alone, wallowing in my apartment would have been much better spent exploring the city and the surrounding areas, but I hadn't been in the right frame of mind to think ahead. Just another example of my thoughtlessness and self-indulgence.

I settled instead for hunting down a convenience store, wanting to buy a pack of cigarettes that I had been craving all morning. I had been practically chain smoking the past couple of days after nearly two weeks of being extremely good and I loved it. I relished in the knowledge that I was inhaling addictive and harmful substances legally – it was probably the closest thing I would ever come to self-harming because I just wasn't emotionally unstable enough for that kind of thing (though maybe after another few days like these I would be). I was oscillating between being depressed, angry and indignant, so much that even I was getting sick of the internal monologue going on in my head. It was probably a good thing that I hadn't shared my experiences of the past three days with anyone else because I probably would have severed all my relationship ties.

I found a store about three blocks from the set and quickly bought the pack with the most chemicals in them. The first inhalation of a cigarette that you've been thinking about having all morning is a feeling like no other. It's simultaneously better than sex and worse because you know everything else after it is never going to be the same. I guess that's why it's so damn hard to actually give up smoking because the craving is so strong that you just _have_ to have one and after that first puff you are a complete goner – a slave to the white, burning stick you hold in your hand.

"Is it me or are you enjoying that far too much for a normal person?" a very familiar voice asked from behind me. The voice wasn't entirely unwelcome, but I would have preferred to be alone right at this moment in time; alone with my very comforting friends that fit very nicely in my back pocket.

"Who said I was normal?" I quipped back, turning around to face Alice and giving her the best smile I could muster when all I wanted to do was suck on my quickly burning cigarette.

She shrugged. "I guess I can't argue with that," she conceded. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I shook my head emphatically. "I'm sick of hearing about it."

She looked confused for a fraction of a second before nodding her head in understanding. "Maybe you should be worried that you're talking to yourself. It's the first sign of madness you know."

"I would be worried, but I figure the lung cancer is going to get me before the complete and total loss of my mental capacity." If I couldn't be alone then the next best thing was to have a completely random conversation so that I could channel my frustration in the form of sarcastic avoidance.

Alice grinned and shook her head. "Come on," she invited, jerking her head in a vague direction away from the convenience store I was loitering in front of. "I have a feeling you need a drink."

I raised my eyebrow at her and burst out laughing. The last thing I needed was to go for a drink with Alice, especially after what happened the last time. Still, I agreed to go with her anyway, figuring I had nothing better to do and really I owed her for not pushing me when I said I didn't want to talk about it. If nothing else, the time I spent with Alice getting totally wasted on her yacht made her far more sensitive to the fact that I didn't like to share and I didn't like to be pushed into sharing; that was definitely not what I thought friendship was about. Doing something to distract your friend from her own thoughts and internal hatred however? Definitely something friends did – good friends too.

*

**EPOV**

New York was every bit as invigorating as I remembered it and I was once again struck with a longing to be back here instead of in LA, though admittedly the time away from Californian soil had increased its appeal somewhat. If this film worked out in the way everyone hoped it would and I didn't completely fuck up the role, I would be moving back to the East Coast sooner than I had ever hoped to. I only needed to become established in the industry enough so that I could have a pick of some roles that came up and then I'd be free to move anywhere in the country within reason. Even if I wasn't a fan of the character I was playing and I didn't know someone who had first-hand knowledge of the story, the prospect of a quicker route out of LA would have been motivation enough for me to work my ass off on this film.

It had been an incredibly long day on set even though we weren't anywhere near ready for filming. Rehearsals had been rather brutal even though we hadn't even touched some of the more crucial scenes of the film. I had spent the afternoon in a recording studio for the first time in my life and I was both terrified and excited. There was some debate as to whether or not we would be using Robert's actual voice in the scenes where he is singing, so they wanted me to lay down some of his tracks to see if I could imitate him closely enough. As soon as they told me about the plan, I felt something like a thousand bats flying around in both my abdomen and my chest – there was no way in hell I would be able to do his music justice. The man was an outright musician and by all accounts, his music was very personal to him. It was the story of his life and a record of his thoughts and experiences – I felt it would be wrong of me to try and copy that. However, the final decision was not mine and if I was going to be forced to sing his songs, I was sure as hell going to put everything I had into it.

Being in a recording studio was a completely surreal experience and I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, or of how I did. It didn't seem as if we got very far for the actual length of time we spent there, but apparently the producer said that it was fine and that I had done better than he ever expected. Whether that was a compliment or not, I didn't know and perhaps that was the way he intended it to be.

I hadn't seen Bella again after we parted ways following the end of Sue's speech. We hadn't rehearsed any of the scenes we had together and by the time she'd finished for lunch, I was already being driven to the studio in the heart of Manhattan. Being driven around New York was not my favourite way to travel and it wasn't just because of the ridiculous traffic on the streets. I loved walking around the city, being part of the bustling crowd that filled the sidewalks no matter what time of day – or night – it was. Still, it was a little ambitious of me to walk from outside of Manhattan right into the heart of the city within forty minutes. Even with the traffic, the drive was still much quicker than I would have been able to manage on foot. Bella had seemed extremely pre-occupied this morning and there was obviously something bothering her that she didn't want to share with me. When tears welled up in her eyes this morning, I began to panic that I'd done or said something incredibly insensitive and inappropriate, but when I repeated the conversation in my head, I couldn't come up with anything.

This morning's interaction was a little strange. It was hard to reconcile the bond that we had formed through the messages and phone calls that we had exchanged whilst I was in London, with the relationship we shared in person. It seemed as if Bella and I were close friends, but without the physical ease of having known each other for years even though it certainly felt that way sometimes. The hug was something I hadn't even thought about – almost a reflex of actually seeing her after having spent such a long time only getting to talk to her and text her. However, when I thought about it now, it was a very strange thing to do to someone that I hadn't even known for a month and something I would never have done to anyone else. Hmmm...maybe I was trying to replace Rosalie's presence in my life, which I had certainly been missing since I got back.

We had talked a couple of times since I left her in London and it seemed as if Rosalie was conquering a lot of her hidden – and not so hidden – demons. Esme had arrived at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, London time and I had to wonder what exactly it was that she could help Rosalie with. Esme was still something of a mystery to me, though admittedly a lot of it had to do with the fact that we hadn't spent much time together. Between my Mom, Rosalie and the wedding plans, I had only seen Esme twice more after out impromptu lunch the first week she'd been in America with my brother. I figured that now we were on the same side of the country it would be easier for me to meet up with both her and my brother. I hadn't seen Carlisle since I left for London, but we had talked rather a lot over the phone both about Rosalie's and Mom's situations. Carlisle had visited our mother again whilst I was in London and he assured me that she seemed to be in a much better state. Apparently, the doctors had been worried that she was showing signs of dementia on top of the paranoid schizophrenia, but that hadn't been the case after all. I was surprised that Carlisle hadn't mentioned this piece of information before I got back from London, but he had thought it best to wait until there was a concrete diagnosis before worrying me. When he put it like that, I couldn't help but agree with his reasoning; I was in London to be a support system for Rose, not to dwell on my own problems and burden her with my worries because she certainly didn't need to hear it.

I was just about to find my cell so that I could call my older brother and suggest the possibility of having dinner either tonight or sometime in the near future, when there was a soft knock at my door. Well, at least that's what I thought the noise was anyway, though I wouldn't have heard it at all had I not been in the living room at the time.

"Who is it?" I shouted, rising up off the couch to answer it even though I wasn't entirely sure that it had actually been my door that was knocked on.

There was no answer and I almost turned right back around to sit back on the sofa thinking it was probably someone else's door that was being pounded on. "It's me," a rather hesitant voice replied from the other side.

Bella sounded much younger and much less confident than she normally did and I wasn't at all surprised to find her shifting around anxiously from foot to foot when I opened the door. She was looking around her as if her being here was expressly forbidden by powerful being. She had been acting extremely weird all day and apparently it wasn't just when she was around me. I had overheard Sue talking to someone over the phone about Bella's strange behaviour, but didn't manage to catch anything more than the fact that our director was worried about her because I wasn't one to listen in on other people's conversations. Especially when they were about a friend of mine – it just felt wrong. She smiled at me when she finally let her eyes rest on one spot long enough to see that I was holding the door open for her to come in

"Hey," she greeted, walking past me and heading straight for the sofa.

"Hey yourself," I replied, shutting the door and following her. "What's up?"

She shrugged. "Nothing much. Just wondered whether you wanted to run some lines with me tonight?"

"Er-" The truth was that I didn't particularly _want_ to run lines with anyone tonight. In fact, I didn't even want to see my script tonight. I had been studying the changes that had been made over the weekend and with the madness that had gone on today, I wanted to take a short break before I really got into it from tomorrow onwards. Then again, I didn't want to seem like I was being lazy when it was only the first day of pre-production.

Bella seemed to sense my hesitance and started to back-track, blushing a little as she spoke. I was struck with how attractive Bella was when she blushed – it showed a very different side to her than I was used to seeing. Then I caught myself and shook my head clear of that very random thought.

"Don't worry about it," she was saying. "You probably have better things to do anyway."

Well, not really. "I was thinking about grabbing dinner with my brother actually," I admitted. "He's here to organise his upcoming wedding and meet his fiancée's family and I thought that the earlier I met up with him, the better it'll be what with our schedules only getting worse by the day."

She nodded, her cheeks turning a much brighter shade of red than before. For some reason, the blushing and the nervous energy she was giving off right now made me see Bella in a completely different way, though I couldn't put a label on exactly how that was. "Sorry," she apologised, getting up from the sofa. "I shouldn't have just assumed that you'd be free. That was stupid of me. I'll just go back."

"Come with us if you want," I offered before she got much further than actually standing up.

She straightened and turned to look at me, as if assessing the sincerity of my invitation. "I don't want to put myself in the middle of some family get-together," she said. "I didn't mean for you to include me in your plans because I obviously have nothing better to do with my time than run lines."

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. "You won't be interrupting anything Bella," I assured her. "Carlisle doesn't even know I want to meet up for dinner yet. I just got the idea about thirty seconds before you knocked on my door."

She raised her eyebrows in suspicion, but then smirked two seconds later. "You wouldn't happen to just have made up those plans to have a valid excuse as to why you're not rehearsing tonight would you?"

"Would I do such a thing?"

She shrugged. "Maybe, but I'm glad you've included me because after today, I could really use a break from running lines and being Kristen." She paused and bit her bottom lip, a pensive look passing over her face. "Do you think it's a bad sign that only one day in and we're already looking for excuses not to rehearse?"

I chuckled. "Not bad per se," I told her. "It's just a sign that we're members of a generation that has a very short attention span and I'm kind of okay with that at the moment."

*

Carlisle was already waiting at the small restaurant in the heart of Greenwich Village when Bella and I arrived, laughing at the way someone on the street had recognised her and stopped walking, causing the three people behind her to slam into the back of her. That girl had obviously not been a native because simultaneously the best and worst thing about people in New York was they genuinely didn't give a shit. A true New Yorker would have spotted Bella and then just walked straight past her without another glance because there was something far more important to do. I think that may have been the reason that so many celebrities moved here – there was far more privacy and you could live some semblance of a normal life, whatever the hell that meant.

My brother stood up as Bella and I approached the table and I noticed her do a double take when she saw him. I bit back my laugh because I knew it would make her even more uncomfortable than she already was, but I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the way people reacted to Carlisle. When Rosalie had first met him, the words '_holy fuck'_ came out of her mouth involuntarily and she had to throw her hand over it to stop anything else embarrassing coming out. People were startled when they met Carlisle for two reasons; the first was that he and I didn't look all too similar. His blond hair and blue eyes were passed on from our maternal grandmother whereas I had my mother's hair and my father's eyes. The second reason – probably the most significant one in terms of both Rosalie's and Bella's reaction – was that as an undergrad, Carlisle had briefly tried his hand – or his body to be more accurate – at modelling. He had won a very big campaign with a certain designer who was famous for their underwear and since then, he had been getting recognised sporadically and mostly by women. He had been extremely embarrassed about it early on in his career when some of his patients recognised him, but it helped him pay off the couple of hundred thousand dollars of college and Medical School tuition, so I was pretty sure he'd do it again if he had his time back.

Carlisle turned to Bella and stuck out a hand to greet her. "Hello" he said, smiling warmly at her. "You must be Bella right? I'm Carlisle, Edward's older, more handsome brother."

Bella laughed and took his proffered hand, relaxing a little with his very amusing joke – or rather his _attempt_ at an amusing joke. "Nice to meet you," she said before sitting down in the chair I had pulled out for her. She looked at me as I, myself sat down, but I couldn't decipher the silent question in her eyes.

"I'm glad you called Ed," Carlisle turned to me as the waiter handed all of us menus. "I was going crazy at the hotel. I need to talk to someone who doesn't want to have a conversation about flower arrangements, centre-pieces or pre-nuptial agreements."

"Esme wants you to get a pre-nup?" I asked, surprised. I don't know why I hadn't really thought about it before because of whom Esme's family was, but I really didn't get the impression from her that she would do something like this.

Carlisle shook his head. "Not her, no, her parents," he informed me. "It's not the pre-nup itself that I have a problem signing, I don't. It's the constant battle between what I should be entitled to should the marriage dissolve. I wouldn't mind, but I'm not even the one arguing, it's her Mom and Dad."

"They're arguing between themselves what assets you should be entitled to should you get divorced?" It was Bella who voiced this question, blushing when Carlisle looked at her and nodded.

"I've already told them I'll sign a piece of paper saying that I'd get nothing, but they're still holding up the process. I think they may be trying to find out if I have any money before drawing up papers for me to sign," he sighed deeply and paused. "Sorry, I said I didn't want to talk about any of this and here I am boring you with the details."

"Don't worry about it," Bella and I said at the same time and the laughed. Carlisle looked between the two of us and raised a questioning eyebrow at me that I was sure Bella caught and chose to ignore. We perused the menus for drinks and food before we got into any real conversation again, not wanting to delay eating for too long.

After the orders were taken, Carlisle asked us what we had spent our day doing and I listened to Bella recounting her experience today with just as much curiosity as Carlisle held because I hadn't been there to witness it. It seemed as if she had gotten in some sort of trouble with Alice at a bar, being that she was under-age and not supposed to have been drinking. However, her day on set didn't seem to be too fraught with difficulties and it only reminded me of just how much more experienced she was at this than me. I was betting that she would have been marvellous in the studio today whereas I'd been a bumbling wreck, ruining take after take of the two songs that we'd managed to record in the five hours we were there. I briefly wondered if Bella could sing. She told me that she played the guitar, or rather attempted to, but she absolutely refused to let me hear her because she was afraid I'd judge her, being musically inclined and all.

As I watched her speak with my brother, recounting her day, I was struck with a feeling – not for the first time today, that something just wasn't quite right with Bella. She had hinted in several of her texts and phone calls that there was some things going on in her life that had been causing her confusion and unhappiness, though I didn't really have any grasp as to what that could have been. I had wondered if it was her boyfriend, but I knew I would never ask her and I didn't think Alice would give me any kind of answers about Bella. That girl seemed a little territorial over Miss Swan and only today, she had given me an extremely odd look as Bella and I walked in to set together. I wondered if there was any way that I could get Bella to tell me what was bothering her and then I stopped myself short of that thought because I was once again doing what Rosalie had accused me of several times – attempting to solve everyone's problems. I sighed quietly to myself and shook my head clear because Bella was not some damsel in distress that needed saving and I had enough problems in my own life to deal with without prying into hers. Perhaps that was the root of all this white knight bullshit – I was too afraid to look at my own problems too closely in case I found that I couldn't solve those.

Carlisle brought me out of my reverie by asking me what I'd done with my day whilst Bella was busy rehearsing and I told him, struggling to not sound like a whiny school boy or an insecure idiot who didn't have a clue what he was getting himself into. For some reason, I was very aware of the fact that Bella was also hearing this conversation and I didn't want her to think less of me. It was strange how the balance in our friendship was a little screwed because it seemed like I was always trying to garner her approval even though with me being older, I should have been the more confident one. It wasn't like I minded because most of the time, I felt as if we were quite on an even footing in our friendship and sometimes, shades of the 18-year old girl Bella still was did shine through.

"You're singing in the film?" Bella seemed just as surprised with this revelation as Carlisle's expression showed that he was.

I shrugged and explained. "They want to see what I sound like compared to the real deal, so they're going to have me lay down some of the tracks used in the film and then run tests so that they can compare which way is better in the different scenes."

"I didn't know you could sing," Bella commented.

"Well, it still remains to be seen whether I can," I told her, smiling. She looked at me thoughtfully for a second before resuming her meal and again, I was left wondering what the hell was up with her today – she was being far more confusing than usual.

Carlisle caught my eye and raised an eyebrow at me in question of the exchange that Bella and I just had, but I had less idea what it was about than he did, so I could do nothing more than shrug. The rest of the dinner passed without incident and I was pleasantly surprised at just how well Bella and Carlisle interacted; I kind of got the feeling that Bella herself was a little surprised at how easy it was to feel comfortable with my brother. Then again, his entire profession centred on trying to make people around him comfortable enough to trust him with their lives – literally. I don't think Carlisle ever turned off the bedside manner he adopted, but after years of doing it, I wondered whether he could actually stop and step away from the role now.

"Do you guys have to be in early tomorrow?" Carlisle asked as the waiter brought us the bill that we'd requested more than ten minutes ago. The restaurant had gotten exponentially busier since we'd arrived and now it was heaving.

"Not ridiculously so," I told him, glancing at the bill and pulling out my wallet, intending to pay for all of it. "We don't have any five o'clock calls until we really start filming."

"Does that mean you have time to get a few drinks right now?" Carlisle took the bill from my hand and placed his credit card over the top of it.

"Yeah sure," I agreed, looking over at Bella who was frowning at my brother. "Do you have a problem with going for drinks Bella?"

She looked at me and shook her head before turning her still disapproving gaze at my brother. "I have a problem with what your brother thinks he's doing with that bill."

Carlisle looked at her quizzically. "Well, I was thinking about paying for our meal," he told her. "I haven't done a dash and dine since college and I don't think I'd be up for it."

I looked up at him in surprise, not having heard the dine and dash story before. I had always thought my brother, the upstanding citizen and a shining example to everyone else, had never done anything even remotely wrong in his life. Apparently Carlisle's college days weren't nearly as dull as he had made them sound, even with all the work I had seen him almost collapse under.

"You're not paying for me," Bella protested and I suddenly understood why she was almost glaring at Carlisle. Bella, I had found, didn't like people spending any amount of money on her. The girl wouldn't even let me buy her a coffee when we hung out unless I ordered it before she had chance to. I didn't understand it because she had absolutely no problem in buying or paying for things for other people, but when I pointed this out to her, she just shrugged her shoulders and told me it was her prerogative to be a paradox – she was a woman after all.

Carlisle, however, had never even met Bella before today and I hadn't exactly told him about her either. The subject of Bella had never really come up between my brother and I and apart from the fact that she was my co-star, he had known nothing else about her until we sat down at this table tonight. He laughed at her insistence and just shook his head, catching the waiter's eye and handing him the silver plate.

"Seriously Carlisle, you can't pay for me," Bella insisted even though she couldn't exactly stop him now. "You don't even really know me."

"I don't need to know you Bella," Carlisle told her. "The only thing I need to know is that you're my brother's friend. So where do the young kids go for fun these days Edward?"

I laughed at his easy dismissal of Bella's complaints and change of subject. If I'd done what he just did, I was pretty sure Bella would have hit me, but now she just shook her head in an attempt to convey her obvious disapproval at his actions. We were half way down the street trying to find a bar that looked vaguely inviting when Bella stopped in front of us, causing Carlisle and I to almost trip over her.

"What's up?" I joked, looking in front of us. "Did you see Britney Spears or something?"

Bella rolled her eyes and smiled. "No, but I just remembered that I have to do something and I can't make it to the bar with you guys tonight."

"You can't or you don't want to?" I asked quietly so that Carlisle wouldn't hear. I don't know whether I wanted to know the answer. Surely Bella wasn't so pissed off with my brother that she would actually just go back home? She didn't seem to be that spiteful or immature, but then again she had been in a very strange mood all day.

"I literally can't," she assured me, putting a soothing hand on my arm. "Whereas you don't have an early morning call tomorrow, I have to meet Alice at six."

I grimaced at the time. It was already eleven now. "Do I want to know why?"

She shook her head. "I don't even want to know why."

We laughed together and I felt a little disappointed that she would not be spending the rest of the night with us. Bella had been pretty much her usual self at dinner and I had realised that I really missed hanging out with her this past week. It was different being with her at work because we were different at work. Our dynamic was completely different and it only had a little to do with the fact that we were supposed to be two completely different people on the set. I insisted on hailing a cab for her and seeing her off. There was a moment when she got into the car and looked up at me that I was filled with the insane and very sudden urge to lean down and kiss the top of her hair. Instead, I just smiled down at her and hoped that the confusion within my own head didn't show on my face. She said a small goodbye and was speeding away in the back of a yellow taxi before I could utter the words myself.

I had almost forgotten that Carlisle was even here as I watched Bella's cab mix with all the other yellow cabs in New York. He came up behind me though and put a hand on my shoulder, patting me in a manner that was supposed to be comforting, I think.

"You are so screwed Edward," he said sympathetically. "Royally fucking screwed."

I was about to ask him what the hell he was talking about, when I noticed him look in the direction I had just been staring at. I looked him in the eye and all he did was raise an eyebrow at me. I remembered the way that I had wanted to place a gentle kiss on the top of Bella's soft, brown hair when she was leaving and I had to agree with my older brother. I was totally and completely screwed.

* * *

**AN: Thanks for everyone who reads the story and a special thanks to everyone who reviews - I do enjoy reading people's reactions to the developments. **


	12. Chapter 12 Past Indiscretions

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything publicly recognisable. Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and real people belong to themselves - no infringement intended. **

**Chapter 12: EPOV**

It was not going to be a good day. That was the first thing that ran through my mind as I woke up this morning, my head feeling like there was a woodpecker somewhere inside my skull. I had drunk far more than I intended to last night owing to the fact that I had suddenly realised that I was attracted to my co-star. How very fucking Hollywood of me. Carlisle had tried incredibly hard to snap me out of it and the combination of his words and the massive amounts of alcohol that I consumed slowly made me come to the conclusion that it was nothing to worry about. Of course I would be attracted to Bella; she was gorgeous, intelligent, witty and equal parts confident and vulnerable. I was a man and I would venture to say that there were very few men, if any at all, who wouldn't find her attractive. It was no big deal. It wasn't like I was thinking about dating her or anything. Quite apart from the fact that she already had a boyfriend, she was not only my co-star, but my 18-year old co-star. She may have been extremely mature for her age with life experience that rivalled someone ten years her senior, but the fact remained that Bella was still a teenager – a _fucking teenager_! I was glad Rosalie had not been there last night to witness my realisation because she wouldn't have stopped ragging on me about it and she would definitely not have calmed me down in the way Carlisle did.

I only hoped that I could get past the whole attraction thing quickly, or if not get past it at least not let it affect the way I interacted with Bella. I didn't want her to feel weird around me because I genuinely did like spending time with her as her friend. Beyond the extremely confusing mood swings sometimes, she was very fun to be around and I guess I kind of liked that she was a little hard to read – it certainly made being around her interesting. I had decided that maybe being attracted to Bella wasn't such a bad thing when I was supposed to be playing a guy absolutely and hopelessly in love with her character. Surely it would just add to the chemistry on screen and that was only good news for the movie. Yes, this whole thing was actually rather a good thing and the only reason I was so confused about it last night was because it surprised the hell out of me and knocked any kind of rational thought out of my head.

I was in a much better mood when the driver knocked on my door this morning to take me to the studio. I briefly wondered where Bella was, but she had said that she was doing something with Alice very early this morning, so I guess they were going to come in together. It was probably better that I see Bella first thing this morning in a work professional capacity rather than a friendly capacity, just to prevent the confusion that enveloped my rational mind last night. I was rehearsing a lot of the band scenes this morning and then going back to the studio this afternoon so record the five other songs that they wanted me to. I hoped that it would take me a lot less time to record the remaining songs now that I knew what to expect from a studio session because I didn't really want to spend every afternoon this week in the recording studio. I wasn't a professional musician and I would much rather be on the set running lines with everyone else, though I did appreciate the fact the music was extremely important in this film. Not as important as it would have been had this been a story solely about Rob's music, but there were definitely changes in his music after the period he was supposed to have become involved with Kristen. The most crucial part about the whole thing was that it remained true to the character and the songs that still touched millions, even after his death.

The first scene I was rehearsing today was the only time in the movie that Rob comes face-to-face with the man that Kristen eventually marries. It was a scene that had been placed in the movie without ever having been referenced in the poem. In his piece, Rob had never alluded to meeting his rival for his love's affections, but rather talked in great detail how he watched him from afar and wished for just a moment to be him. He wrote about how he wished that he could be in the other man's place for just a moment and experience what it was like to take her in his arms for the world to see; to be able to bask in her love and know it was right for them to be the most important thing to each other. In the script, the two meet before the period that Kristen was engaged to Timothy, but after it was made clear by her parents that she was expected to marry the guy. I would have to ask Esme whether this meeting actually ever took place and if the outcome had been as tame as it played out on the page right now.

I was wandering around the set looking for either Sue or Ben so that we could run through this scene and get some direction on how she wanted it played, when I saw Bella walking out of the sound stage that was being used as Kristen's house. She looked startlingly different to how I remembered her looking last night, with her hair a much lighter brown, shorter and straighter than normal. Obviously that thing that she had to do with Alice at six this morning involved her transforming from Bella to Kristen. I watched her walking in my direction with her head down so she couldn't see me and had to admit to myself that she looked much better with the long, deep brown hair that she had been naturally born with. Kristen was pretty, sure, but Bella was...well, maybe I should stop thinking shit like that because otherwise, I would be back to where I was last night when I decided that beer was no longer enough and I had to start drinking shots.

She was only about a hundred feet from me when she looked up and saw me watching her, though I hoped it didn't look like I'd been standing there the entire two minutes it had taken her to close the distance between us – even if that was precisely what I had done.

"Hey Edward," she greeted, stopping just in front of me. "When did you get here?"

"About ten minutes ago," I informed her. "I was just looking for Ben or Sue. I don't suppose you've seen them around?"

She shook her head of freshly dyed hair and I had to admit that the way the light was hitting it at the moment, made it look quite luminescent. I caught myself once more before the thoughts could go any further. I really needed to stop thinking of how attractive Bella was otherwise, it could get very difficult to separate my feelings as Robert to my feelings as Edward. The difficulty of detaching oneself from the mind-set of the character he/she was playing was precisely the reason that a lot of actors ruined their real relationships by having an affair with their co-star. It was also the reason why the cast of a TV show couldn't seem to stop mirroring the drama onscreen within their everyday lives. A certain amount of attraction to the person playing the love of your life was expected – encouraged even – but too much was the start of some extremely difficult shit.

"I've just gotten here myself actually," she told me. "I was looking for you."

"Me?" I was puzzled. Bella and I didn't have any rehearsal time together today, though no doubt we would be running through our scenes together in our own time. We had already talked about how we were going to best portray these two tragic lovers and we both decided that we would give it everything we had. I had a lot of respect and admiration for Rob and the fact that my future sister-in-law was part of the real story made me want to really give it my all.

"I just wanted to apologise again for leaving so abruptly last night," she said. "As you've probably noticed – or maybe not since you're a man – I had to go and make myself look like a seventeen year-old New York socialite this morning."

I nodded. "Whilst it makes a nice change that you are acknowledging the fact that I am indeed a man, I did notice the change in hairstyle."

She chuckled. "You just couldn't let yourself be perceived as an insensitive macho jerk for one minute could you Edward?" She sighed deeply, over-dramatising something as she prepared what was no-doubt the punch-line of her joke. "You're going to make someone a very attentive wife some day."

I shoved her lightly and we began walking towards some other sound studios that people were coming in and out of. "The hair looks good," I commented after our mutual laughter had died down.

"Thanks," she replied, shrugging. "I'm not too sure about it myself. It's a little light."

I copied her shrug and said nothing else. The truth was, although I preferred Bella's original hairstyle, she didn't look any worse for having Kristen's hair instead. Her hair would change several times throughout the course of the film as she played the ten year span of Kristen's life that the movie conveyed. I didn't exactly see how they were expecting to pass my 18-year old co-star off as 26, but I guess the make-up department would be the ones solving that problem. I had seen pictures of Kristen from newspapers and from Esme and I had to admit that the casting of Bella to fill her role was pretty spot on. They had a very similar face shape and even when she was in her mid-twenties, Kristen had looked as if she could have passed for an older teen if she tried. The only thing that was different however, was the expression in their eyes. One of the most famous pictures of Kristen was her wedding photo, which was released to all the newspapers within New York upon her marriage to Timothy Winters. On the outside they looked like the picture perfect, Upper East Side couple with their expensive designers wedding clothes and not a hair out of place. However, one good look at the bride revealed that the marriage was pretty much doomed to begin with. There was absolutely nothing in Kristen's eyes. There was no happiness shining from the pages of the newspaper, no spark. Instead, there was something in them that I couldn't quite name, but something that I felt as if I recognised and Bella certainly did not have the same look.

They always say a picture can paint a thousand words and that one certainly did, if not several more. The groom had looked at his bride with all the love and pride that he was expected to have, but she couldn't even properly fake the smile that graced her lips. She did not look at him, but instead looked at the camera, as if conveying some sort of message to the rest of the world – or maybe just one person in particular. Obviously the picture had taken on a much greater meaning to me since I found out that Rob and Kristen had been involved with each other, but even before that, I always felt that there was something _'off'_ in the photograph – my knowledge now just confirmed it.

"So did you and your brother get up to anything wild when I left?" Bell asked. We had passed the sound stage that I had thought we were heading for, but we kept on walking anyway.

I let out a sudden burst of laughter at her question, to which she reacted by giving me a strange look. I didn't exactly count moaning to my brother about the fact that I had just realised I was attracted to my co-star as 'wild' – nor would Bella. "I don't think Carlisle knows what wild means unless it's in reference to animals."

Bella's mouth lifted in a cheeky smirk and there was a glint in her eyes that had me smiling at her in return. "I highly doubt that," she disagreed. "I think your brother can get pretty wild if he really wanted to. At least he did in my head when I was younger."

"Oh good god!" I exclaimed, stopping in my tracks as Bella's laughter sounded loudly around me. I wanted to scrub my brain free from the images that her suggestive words had conjured up. "That was way too much information and something I could have done the rest of my life without ever having to hear."

Bella just continued laughing and walking away from me, but I couldn't get over the knowledge that she had ever pictured Carlisle in a sexual way. She was only 18 for god's sake! When he had modelled that underwear line she would have only been 8 and there was no way an 8-year old girl had sexual fantasies about anyone. 8 year olds didn't even know what sex was! She had to have been teasing me to get a reaction. That was the only explanation that wouldn't make me want to bleach my brain out.

"Please tell me you're kidding," I pleaded with her when I finally regained the use of my legs again after that traumatic revelation. She shrugged in a very annoyingly non-committal kind of way. She was clearly enjoying torturing me in this way. "You have to be kidding," I reasoned, calling her out on her little bluff. "You were only 8 when that advertising campaign was released. There was no way you were that sick then."

She snorted at this and looked at me in a very patronising sort of way that would have annoyed the hell out of me at any other point, but right now I was far too horrified for any other emotion to even get a mention. "And advertising campaigns like those just go away forever huh?"

I groaned, realising that she hadn't been lying at all. Obviously she had seen the pictures later on in her life via some form of media device and it had all started from there. I didn't know how I could carry on being friends with someone admitted to having had sexual fantasies about my brother. Then I remembered I was friends with Rosalie. Not only had Rose freely admitted to _me_ that she'd had sex dreams about Carlisle when she first met him, she admitted it to Carlisle. I don't think I've ever seen my brother stumble and stutter as much as he did during that conversation. Somehow, I doubt Bella would have the nerve to ever do such a thing, which gave me an insanely diabolical plan.

I sighed deeply, which caused her to look around at me. "Not another one," I said in a defeated tone. "I wonder what Carlisle would say this time."

Now it was Bella that stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me with her jaw hanging open and her eyes wide with panic and fear. Turnabout was fair play; she couldn't complain about this after what she'd just revealed to me.

"You wouldn't?" she challenged, but there was a wavering in her voice that implied she wasn't at all sure that I wouldn't spill the beans about her adolescent fantasies to their very object.

I shrugged. "Carlisle and I have a very honest relationship," I tell her, keeping my voice even and my face completely devoid of any signs of laughter. "It's not like you're the first one. Rosalie...well, let's just say there was a very awkward time in their relationship when Carlisle could not look her in the eyes."

I chuckled at the memory of the week after Rosalie had confessed to my older brother about the exact content of the dreams she had about him. We had all been living in the same apartment at that point and every time they were in the same room as each other, Carlisle would glance in Rosalie's direction, go bright red and mumble about having to be somewhere else. At the time, I had found it slightly frustrating because I would be having a conversation with him and Rose would turn up, or be in the room we were walking into and suddenly he would completely forget that I had been talking to him. Now, looking back, I couldn't find anything but humour in the situation. When I looked over at Bella, however, she looked both confused and slightly wary of me, no doubt still wondering whether or not I would actually tell Carlisle what she'd said. I decided to say nothing and let her stew because honestly she deserved it for coming out with a very disturbing comment like that in the first place.

We had walked to the other side of the lot where there was absolutely no one in sight before Bella finally spoke again. "Isn't that a little awkward for you?" she asked, voice full of curiosity.

I looked back at her, confused as to what she meant. "For me? Not really. Why?" I could imagine that it was still awkward for Carlisle in the rare times I mentioned it to get a rise out of him, but mostly we all pretended that week in our lives didn't actually happen. We never spoke of it again and even Rosalie had now glossed over the fact that she had once been attracted to my brother. Whenever I even so much as hint at mentioning it, she shuts me up before the words start to form in my head. She now saw Carlisle as her brother and she didn't relish the thought of incest, even if she did still admit that he was an extremely attractive man.

Bella shrugged and looked around, her eyes nervously sliding from one thing to another in the distance just above my shoulders and to either side of me. "Well, you know," she tried, evidently uncomfortable with what she wanted to say.

I shook my head and she glared at me in frustration, as if it was my fault she was being as clear as mud right now. How the hell did she expect me to know what she was thinking when she wouldn't tell me and I wasn't exactly a mind reader? It wasn't as if I was trying to purposely be a dick just to make her angry, but she seemed to interpret my ignorance as exactly that. "Seriously Bella, I'm a guy. You're going to have to spell this one out for me."

She groaned and rolled her eyes. "You are so fucking infuriating you know that right?"

"And you, with your half-sentences and murky implications aren't?" I retorted.

"I just wanted to know if it was awkward between you and Rosalie knowing that she had the hots for your brother when you are obviously-"

"Edward! Bella!" Ben's voice calling us interrupted Bella in the middle of her tirade – and just before she got to the good part too. When I was obviously what exactly?

I was extremely curious as to how she was going to end that sentence and in all honesty, I was a little pissed at Ben for choosing this very moment to appear when I'd been looking for him for the better part of thirty minutes. He had waited this long to come out of wherever he had been hiding, but he couldn't have waited another couple of seconds just so I could have heard the end of Bella's sentence? Honestly, the guy could never have done a comedy film – he had the worst timing in the history of the world. Bella, on the other hand, looked extremely relieved to have Ben interrupt us. This surprised me because he had interrupted her in the middle of something it seemed that she had wanted to get off her chest for a while seeing as she was very touchy about it. Then again, she had seemed very reluctant to elaborate on what she meant by her less than clear question about the awkwardness between Carlisle, Rosalie and I brought about by Rosalie's uncontrollable hormones and equally uncontrollable mouth.

"Where have you guys been?" he asked, a little breathless because he'd jogged over to us.

"We were looking for you actually," Bella covered and I couldn't help but snort softly at this. Initially, _I_ had been looking for Ben, but _we_ had been looking for no one. In fact, judging from where we were, it would appear that the purpose of our walk had been to avoid bumping into anyone at all.

"All the way out here?" It seemed as if Ben had been having exactly the same thoughts as me. Maybe he had the power to read people's minds. "Everyone's in sound stage 5 over the other side of the lot."

"Oh," Bella said, shrugging and seemingly unconcerned about the fact that Ben didn't believe for a second that we had been looking for him. She began to walk away from the both of us without another word and I was pretty sure that she would never bring up the topic of conversation that we'd been having that morning ever again. She would probably pretend that none of it had happened and therefore, she wouldn't have to give me the answers she was obviously trying to get out of giving me. Hmmm...well, I'd just have to coax it out of her when she least expected it.

Ben and I started walking after her. "What exactly were the two of you doing out here?" Ben asked me, his tone hinting at something I didn't feel at all comfortable with.

"Like she said," I reiterated, voice completely neutral. "We were looking for you. I wanted to know if you were ready to read the scene yet."

Ben didn't look as if he believed me any more than he believed Bella, but he also knew that he wasn't going to get a different answer from either of us, so he just shrugged and nodded. By the time we made it through the doors of sound stage 5, Bella was already involved in a scene with Alice. Ben and I found the area that was being used as the hotel bar where the two men meet and tell each other about their version of the one woman they both loved.

*

The afternoon at the studio hadn't been too bad and I had actually finished recording all the songs that they wanted me to try out. The next step was now filming a couple of the scenes that they would be used in and superimpose either my version of the songs or Rob's original version and see which the executive and the test-audience responded to better. I didn't, for one minute, think that any of my versions stood a chance against the original and I didn't really understand why they would ever want to use anything other than the man's vocals for his songs. There were undoubtedly songs used in the film that Robert had written for Kristen and about Kristen and the only way that those songs could be expressed properly was by the man that wrote them. I know that some actors did very well when they sang the songs of the musicians they were portraying – Reese Witherspoon and Jacquin Phoenix for example – but, I could definitely hear the difference. There was so much emotion behind the words when Rob sang them because they were _his_ emotions, his thoughts and his experiences. I had never experienced the kind of obsessive, all-consuming love that he felt for this woman and so I could never inflect my words in the same manner. But hey, I was the hired monkey right, and I did the dance that the suite organ-grinders wanted me to do.

I walked into the small bedroom in my temporary home and collapsed on the bed, my arms and legs spread in a way that would have been a very good imitation of a starfish. The day, as a whole, hadn't been as bad as I thought it was going to be this morning; then again, my mind had been clouded by the constant pounding earlier. I had thought that my realisation that I was attracted to Bella would change the way I acted around her, but I don't really think it did because I had always been a bit intimidated by her anyway. I had noticed that I was having slightly inappropriate thoughts about her, but I put a stop to those as soon as I recognised them. It wasn't as if I was picturing the girl naked and willing on my bed or anything, but some of the thoughts I had about the way her eyes looked when she was smiling, or the way her lips curved when she was really smiling, were not the kind of thoughts one would have about their co-star. I mean I didn't have any of those thoughts for Alice, Jessica or Angela even though all three of them were very attractive girls indeed. I tried my hardest to keep all inappropriate thoughts to a minimum though and I was fairly certain it would get easier with time.

Alice and Tyler had joined me in the recording studio for the latter half of the afternoon and it was safe to say that Alice Brandon did not like me. Before today, I had just suspected that she didn't like me, but now I was absolutely _sure_ of it. The only thing I wasn't exactly sure of was what the hell I'd done that made her dislike me in such a short space of time. I had met Alice only on three occasions and during the first one, she actually seemed quite friendly towards me – flirty even. Now, she spent a large proportion of her time glaring at me whenever we were in the same room. I thought back to anything I may have said to offend her and could literally come up with nothing.

It was going to be quite an uncomfortable situation if she continued with the almost blatant hostility because not only were we supposed to work together for the next three months, but it seemed as if one of my best friends was planning on her being around for a prolonged period of time. Jasper was quite smitten with Miss Brandon and had told me more about her than I ever cared to know. I knew that her favourite colour was blue and that she loved dancing to no music at all. I knew that her favourite desert was pana cotta and what her shampoo smelled like. In short, Jasper had gushed about her so much that he spoke for an entire thirty minutes non-stop about her without noticing the fact that I hadn't said anything in return within that time frame. The only thing I really wanted to know about the girl was why she seemed extremely distant towards me and that was probably the _only_ thing Jasper didn't have an answer to. Maybe I should ask Bella why Alice seemed to hate _me_ in particular out of everyone in the case. If I'd done something to inadvertently offend her than I wanted to apologise and clear up the misunderstanding. I didn't want to be on bad terms with someone that I may have to spend a lot of time hanging out with even once we'd wrapped the film.

I searched around for my lap top, wondering whether Rosalie had sent me the email that she promised detailing exactly what she had done today. Esme had informed Carlisle and I yesterday that Rose had made an appointment to see her father at his place of work today under a pseudonym. She had tried to get in contact with both of her parents, but neither of them had answered her calls or allowed her to see them when she visited their house in Brighton. She knew very well why they were avoiding her – they didn't want to talk about the trial and its implications. They had basically stopped even acknowledging that Rosalie was still alive and their daughter and the fact that she had been proven right all along would not matter to them. The only thing that did matter was that their name had once again been dragged through the mud simply by having Rosalie's name in print as one of the victims in the case. It astounded me that Rosalie's parents could still be so fucking heartless and callous about the whole thing when surely they now knew that their daughter had been telling the truth the whole time. Was this their way of coping with the knowledge that they had failed her in the most basic sense? By pretending that nothing happened? Surely an apology would have been much more fitting – too little too late, yes, but definitely better than this absolute refusal to admit their own mistakes and accept their part of the blame.

I was still extremely worried about Rosalie, especially in the context of her confronting her parents, but I was less worried about her general well-being. I had finally learnt last night exactly why Esme had come out to support Rosalie in her endeavours this week, not just with her parents, but with the baby that she never even had the chance to know. Carlisle had told me the story of the little girl that Esme had never even gotten the chance to hold in her arms and it made me appreciate exactly how this woman that Rose had known for little over a month could understand her in a way I couldn't even begin to imagine. They had shared the most terrible loss and if Esme could help Rosalie deal with the pain that she'd been ignoring for the past five years then I was only too grateful for her help.

It had been painful for Carlisle to tell me what happened to the woman he loved, but Esme had given him permission to let me know exactly why she was much better qualified, in a sense, to be guiding Rosalie through this part of her journey.

"_Esme was in her sophomore year at Brown when she found out she was pregnant," Carlisle started, his eyes dimming from their usual bright blue. "She was dating her high school boyfriend at the time. They'd been together since junior year of high school and everyone expected that they'd get married once they both finished undergrad."_

_Carlisle stopped and emptied the beer bottle he'd been holding onto for the last ten minutes before he carried on talking. I supposed now wasn't the best time in the world to talk about this, but I guess we never did learn that drinking and serious topics of conversation did not exactly go hand in hand. I felt more than a little guilty for bringing this up when I no longer wanted to talk about Bella, but I had no idea when I asked that it would lead to the morose mood that now enveloped Carlisle._

"_She told him about the pregnancy and they got engaged within about two weeks, but not before her boyfriend did some freaking out. At first he told her to think about getting rid of the baby because they just weren't ready for it. Esme, of course, was appalled. She accepted that they weren't ready for a kid yet, but it didn't mean that they couldn't cope and in that circumstance, she thought it was completely wrong to even think about having an abortion. They could provide for the baby and still carry on with their lives without much interruption."_

"_Her boyfriend eventually came around to the idea, though now Esme suspects it may have had something to do with his family rather than him. She was happy though, when he proposed and seemed to accept the new direction that their lives were going. Of course she was happy, even though it was earlier than planned, she was getting everything she ever wanted."_

"_Anyway, one weekend, she visited Yale to surprise her fiancé because he'd claimed that the reason he couldn't visit her himself was that he had far too much work to do for school. She walked into his apartment to find him having sex with two other girls. She ran out of there faster than he had even realised she had caught him. I guess it took a while with his attention already divided in two." Carlisle's bark of sarcastic laughter was dripping in malice and his eyes were hard. Obviously the man had issues with the bastard that had caused Esme so much pain._

"_It was on the drive back that everything happened," Carlisle continued, his eyes now brimming with pain rather than contempt. "She didn't see it coming and for the longest time she blamed herself thinking that she should have known better than to drive home that upset. It was a drunk driver. She was about twenty miles from where she lived when he hit her side of the car. She was brought into hospital unconscious and bleeding. She's lucky to be alive, but..." _

_Carlisle stopped speaking, swallowed and looked away. It didn't matter that Esme's unborn child hadn't been his, nor did it matter to him that he hadn't even known her then; he still felt her pain. He knew her now and loved her now and anything that had ever upset her before affected him. I guess that's what happens when you find the one you want to share your life with – you share the past as well as the present and the future. He didn't need to say anything else for me to know exactly why Rose and Esme had something in common even though they couldn't be more different. The accident had killed the baby and ripped away the happy future that Esme had envisioned only months before. _

The worst part of the story had actually been how Esme's supposed fiancé took the news that the woman he was supposed to have loved was lying in a hospital room after having lost their unborn child. He had visited her, sure, but when she told him about what she had seen the afternoon of the accident, all he told her was that he felt too much pressure. He had felt pressured into growing up and starting a family with her when all he wanted to do was have fun. They were still young and in college; neither of them needed to be tied down with a child and a husband/ wife. It was clear that he saw the accident as some sort of get out of jail free card and that made me sick. He had clearly never really loved her and chose to reveal that whilst she was still recovering both physically and emotionally from the accident that had been partially his fault. I really failed to understand how some people could look themselves in the mirror in the morning.

I glanced at the numerous emails in my inbox looking for Rosalie's name and finally found it sandwiched between an email from my agent and an email from Zafrina. She and I had spoken once more before I left London and decided to keep in touch. She was fun to be around and there was definitely an underlying attraction between us, which I don't think was one-sided at all. I knew that she was going to be in New York to go to college, but whether or not we'd be in the city at the same time was yet to be seen.

_Ed,_

_Went to see my shitty excuse for a father yesterday and it was as much of a fucking nightmare as I thought it would be. I posed as a prospective employee just so that he'd actually see me and when he walked into the room and saw me the man almost had a fucking coronary. His face went from white to red to purple and he told me to get out. His actual words were:_

_'I see you haven't given up lying to get your own way Rosalie, but I don't have time right now to indulge you.'_

_Charming right? I don't know how I held myself together, but I resisted the urge to punch the fucker in the face. Anyway, I politely told him that we were having this conversation whether he wanted to or not and it was his choice if we had it in the corridors of his office or in the private meeting room. That made him re-think his stance of me leaving the room. _

_Anyway, I told him everything. I think I just really wanted him to know. I wanted him to have the same thoughts and images as I'd had in my head since I was 13. I wanted him to feel even a fraction of what I did for all these years. I think I wanted him to understand exactly what his apathy and his turning a blind eye to everything had done to me. My therapist says that I needed my parents to acknowledge what had happened, but to be perfectly honest, I don't think they ever will and my Dad certainly didn't disappoint on that front. He sat there completely devoid to emotion and when I was done all he said was that he didn't need to hear that crude language and I should stop holding on to the imaginings of a 13-year old. He told me I wasn't a little girl anymore and I should realise that my lies and my actions hurt other people – him and my mother for example._

_Somehow Edward, the bastard managed to turn it around so that it was once again my fault. It was my fault that my mother was apparently being medicated to her eyeballs right now. Apparently, I broke their hearts with what I did when I was seventeen. What fucking hearts?! My mother's heart was black and shrivelled long before I even came into the world. That was why she could stand to be around my father in the first place. _

_I walked out before he could somehow imply that it was my fault his friend had decided to rape me when I was a child because I really don't think I could have held back from doing something I probably wouldn't regret, but would definitely be arrested for. I think I felt worse after seeing my father than I did after I went to see Royce King. I don't know what the hell I expected from him, but was an apology too much to hope for? Was recognition of the fact that he had been nearly as responsible for what had happened to me too much? I guess with my parents any kind of human emotion is too much to ask for._

_I don't know Ed. I thought I'd prepared myself for what was bound to come out of the man's mouth when he saw me, but I guess you can't really steel yourself up for something like that. I want to know why the hell I got lumbered with parents that had no business having a child in the first place. Was I some social experiment for them that went horribly wrong? Did they ever care about me at all? When I was little, I used to think my life was wonderful. I had everything every little girl dreams of – all the toys and clothes I could want, a pony and I never had to share my parents with anyone. Now, looking back all I see is emptiness and isolation. Sure, I had all the material things I could ever dream of, but I didn't have anyone to enjoy them with even then. My parents were always away and we never really spent any time together. _

_Hmmm...I guess there's nothing I can do about it now. I said what I had to say to him – purged myself from the words I'd longed for him to hear from me. I think I probably have closed that wound as much as I can and maybe years down the line it'll heal and maybe not. Can you ever get over the knowledge that your parents never loved you at all? _

_Anyway, I hope you haven't jumped off the edge of a cliff by now, though I wouldn't blame you if you had. My life is a tad depressing no? Ha...there's the understatement of the century. I hope everything is going well for you in New York. Don't worry about me because I know that's what you tend to do. I'm not exactly fine, but I'm getting there and I will be fine. Just concentrate on yourself and doing the best job you can because you deserve success Edward. After everything you've done for me and your Mom, you deserve some time to just be you. _

_Xxx_

I shook my head at the end of Rosalie's email. I could tell that she was trying to make a joke out of her current situation in order to convince me that she really was okay and I didn't need to do something crazy like jump on the next plane to London. She made it sound like I had done something special for her, but I don't think I had. I was there for her because she was my best friend – anyone else would have done the same thing. I think sometimes Rosalie saw me as some shining example of the male species because I had been the first man in her life that hadn't let her down, but I hadn't done anything except be her friend. I _wished_ I could have done something more for her, but I was only human and my capacity to help her was limited.

I sighed and closed the computer, deciding to catch up on the rest of my emails later. I needed to take a walk in order to clear my mind of Rosalie's current situation and problems. I hated that her parents were such poor excuses for human beings. I hated that she felt as if they had never loved her because seriously, who ever needs to feel that? My own childhood may not have been filled with flowers and rainbows, but at least I knew that my mother loved me unconditionally. The world really was a fucked up place to be; it was a wonder how anyone could trust anyone else.

*

**BPOV**

I looked at myself critically in the mirror, bothered about the fact I was bothered about the new hair. I had never been the type of person so care much about what I looked like and now I was semi-freaking out about my new hair cut when it was all for a part anyway. I had wanted to be someone else all weekend and now that I was finally taking steps along the road of transformation, I was having second thoughts about the whole thing. It was just extremely strange to see my face framed by hair that made me look like a completely different person. It was like I was my own cousin – I could see the similarities to my old self, but it didn't quite fit. I had no idea that Alice was intending on taking me to the hairdressers at six o'clock this morning, but that was exactly what had happened. She, herself had need to dye her hair a few shades lighter and get extensions put in. She had embraced the change completely, already loving the idea of being able to flick her longer hair around when she was playing a rock chick on the screen.

I was still grappling with the acceptance of my new look and it didn't sit well with me that I was so hung up about my own hair. It wasn't even like the change was that drastic; I didn't have to shave my hair or anything. It was only about four inches shorter, if that. I guess the biggest change was the colour. My hair was a dark, mahogany with hints of a dark red when the sun shone on it, but now it was much closer to blond than I had ever envisioned myself being. I had never thought that I was one of those girls that identified who they were by the way that they looked, but apparently I was more superficial than I had thought. I felt like I was losing myself even though I had been craving to lose myself in this character. Goodness, I really needed to stop with the over-dramatics – it was only hair for crying out loud. Besides, Edward had said that the new hair looked good so it couldn't have been that bad right? God, I was pathetic. I was not only obsessing about my hair, but obsessing about obsessing about my hair. I really needed to get the hell out of this apartment. In fact, what I really needed was to get the hell out of my head, but that wasn't going to be happening any time soon so leaving the apartment would have to do.

I decided that this would be a very good time to take a walk and absorb the atmosphere of the streets of Manhattan. I had heard several times that this was a city where you could walk down the street and just disappear within the crowd and I had a feeling that's exactly what I needed right now. Hell, who was I kidding? I had no idea what the hell I needed right now. I simultaneously wanted to be someone else and just disappear, but not lose who I was. I was confused and emotional and not really in the right frame of mind to be walking around a strange city by myself, but I also really needed to clear my head. I was sick of the company of my thoughts and it didn't help that I was feeling more than a little guilty about the whole Jacob situation.

I had logged on to my email account this afternoon and found an email from him begging me to just pick up the phone and call him. He needed to hear from me that I was fine, not from his computer or from his friend. I felt awful, but not awful enough to pick up the phone. For some unfathomable reason, I just couldn't face talking to Jake. Was it because I would have a complete breakdown if I heard his voice? Maybe. I could pretend to everyone else that I was fine and that I was handling whatever situation was going on with me very well, but I couldn't do that with Jake and I didn't want to go over the situation yet; I wasn't ready. So I right now I was choosing avoidance as the way to deal with everything and when that came crashing down...well, I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

I wrote back telling him that I needed some time to clear my head before I rehashed everything with him. I needed some space and whilst I appreciated his concern, it really wasn't warranted. I was doing the best I could be and coping in the only way I knew how to – by immersing myself in my work and the new world I was going to be a part of. I had enjoyed rehearsals today, not just when I was doing the scenes I was involved in, but also when I was watching everyone else. It was great to see it coming together and I just knew that in less than three weeks when we were ready to actually film, everyone would be great. I was excited about the film, more so than I had been for any other project I was part of and I didn't think it was just because it would really be my first _leading_ role. I was excited because it wasn't everyday that you got to work with a cast and crew as brilliant and cohesive as the one we had right now. I was sounding like someone's awards acceptance speech, but that was honestly how I felt as I watched everyone rehearse their scenes.

I walked past a small coffee shop about four blocks from where my apartment was and decided that a good cup of coffee was always a good idea. It didn't look too busy in the shop, but it was filled with enough people so that I could enjoy just watching everyone else going about their lives. I did enjoy people watching. There was nothing better at getting your mind off whatever happened to be bothering you than watching the people around you, even if you didn't know anything about them. I guess it reminded me of the fact that I wasn't the only person in the world with problems or worries. Everyone had the tendency to get caught up in their own world, but being around people made you realise that the world did not centre around you and your issues. I guess it was humbling in a way.

I got my coffee and chose a seat at the very back of the small shop so that I could absorb the atmosphere without being part of it myself. I had been sitting there for about ten minutes, watching the couple in the far right corner interact and pretend like they weren't attracted to each other. They were young, probably a couple of years younger than I was and at intermittent times, they would catch the other one looking at them and they would both turn quickly. It was kind of cute the way they were obviously into each other, but didn't want the other to know. Oh...young love. I caught myself then and had to chuckle. Sometimes I wondered how old I thought I was because I certainly didn't feel like I was only 18. My mother had once told me that I had been born middle-aged and just got older every year. The thought of my Mom then sent a twisting pain to shoot through my chest and I had to close that particular avenue of reflection as soon as it started or I would turn into a blubbering wreck in the middle of a coffee shop.

I turned my head slightly from the young non-couple that I had been watching just in time to see someone extremely familiar walk through the coffee shop doors. I wanted to get up and walk straight out again, but he had spotted me before I could make my escape and he was already making his way towards me, that sickening smile stretching his lips. I gulped down the remaining coffee in my cup, not caring too much that it was burning the back of my throat – anything to get out of this place faster.

"My my, Isabella," James Wilde greeted, his expression almost leering. "Fancy seeing you here all by your lonesome."

James' tone turned my stomach even though he had said very little to me. There was something about the guy that I just didn't like and I doubted that I would have felt any different had he not tried to eat my face the last time I saw him. I smiled tightly at him, not wanting him to see that he was pissing me off just by being here; it would only have encouraged him. I had a feeling that James was the kind of guy who liked the chase; the more unavailable the target of this attentions, the more exciting he found them.

"Fancy seeing you here at all James," I said whilst standing. I needed to leave if he was going to be here. "LA get a bit too small for you?"

He laughed and an unpleasant shiver ran down my spine. "Babe, America is too small for me, though if you're up for the challenge..." He winked at me suggestively and I wanted to scratch my eyeballs out just so I didn't have to see it.

I shook my head and resisted the urge to vomit all over the table in front of us. "Well, it's been nice talking to you James," I say with a sickly sweet smile that lets him know exactly what I thought of talking to him. "We should do this again the other side of never."

I started walking away and hoped to god that he didn't actually follow me. I didn't know or care why exactly James Wilde was in New York, but I did know that I didn't want to run into him again. He was everything that was wrong with Hollywood – young and old. He believed that a little bit of talent entitled him to behave like the world's biggest tool; he reminded me a lot of Kyle. Again pain ripped through me faster than I could stop the thoughts that caused them. I wished I could control thoughts that filtered their way down into my consciousness. It seemed as if there really was no escape from the thoughts about my mother and the situation I had created between the two of us. Maybe I had already come to the bridge and I was just resisting walking across it with all my might.

*

I was on the verge of my fifteenth birthday when I met Kyle Ludlow. He had been cast as my older brother in a biopic about a very well known politician. He was 17 and incredibly good looking and charismatic. He had everyone on set eating out of the palm of his hands, actors and crew members alike. I was awed by him, impressed by the way he handled everything that was thrown at him. He was third generation Hollywood. His grandmother was the first women to have been made head of a major movie studio and his grandfather was the first African-American male to even be nominated for an Oscar. His father was one of the most respected directors in Hollywood and his mother had just won her second Oscar for a film that she had written. He was born and bred for the business and there wasn't anyone working on the film that doubted it for a moment.

I think I idolised him as soon as I saw him, with his bright blue eyes, thick wavy blond hair and dimples that appeared when he gave his toothpaste commercial smile. I wanted to have the kind of standing he had in the world that we both inhabited. I sought his approval as soon as we met and I followed him around the set like I was eight and he was an ice cream van. I didn't understand until it was too late that Kyle was an over-privileged asshole who was far too used to getting his own way to really appreciate the value to anything. At the time, all I wanted to was for him to like me and accept me as a friend and maybe teach me something about the movie world that he had garnered from years of experience.

I had always been proud of myself for not buckling under the pressure of Hollywood but to be perfectly honest, I wasn't always that way. At 14 all I wanted to do was _fit in_ somewhere. It's hard being a teenager and not really having a place where I belonged. I was a child in an adult world, but I wasn't like all the other children my age and we had nothing in common. I wanted Kyle to like me enough so that I could fit in with him and his friends. He seemed as if he had this whole thing figured out and he was only three years older than I was. I was absolutely devastated when I overheard him talking to a friend of his whilst they were smoking by his trailer. His friend made a derogatory comment about the way I followed Kyle around the set. I had expected my onscreen brother to defend me, but he just laughed and agreed with the friend. I went back to my own trailer and cried for hours. Clearly I was too young and too immature for him to be friends with me. I was being an annoying kid and I didn't want him to see me that way; I would have to change that.

I remembered the conversation that Renee was talking about as soon as she said it, though I had tried my hardest to block it out of my memory.

_Kyle and I were in the make-up trailer waiting for the make-up artists to come and prepare us for the day ahead. I had stopped following him around so much and stopped giggling like a twelve year old school girl whenever I was around him. I wanted him to see me as an equal, not as some annoying thorn in his side._

"_How're you doing kid?" Kyle asked me after we had been sitting in silence for a little while._

_I frowned at his nickname for me. I had been thrilled when he first used it, thinking he was getting used to me and had accepted me, but now I just saw it as a patronising term. "Kid?" I asked, my voice taking on a hard quality that I had used many times in films, but never really needed to in my real life. "What are you, about a year older than me?"_

_Kyle looked a little taken aback by me response – normally I would have just blushed and said that I was okay before asking him how he was. He smiled down at me. "Try about three."_

"_Well I'm good, thanks...kid." I emphasised the last word with a smirk and a challenge to my tone. _

_Kyle looked at me curiously, his eyebrow cocking upwards in question. "Did I do something to offend you Isabella?"_

_I shook my head. "You didn't do anything Kyle," I lied. "I just don't like being treated like a four year old by someone who's not even legal themselves." I didn't know where I was getting all of this bravado from, but suddenly, I was feeling extremely confident in front of Kyle Ludlow. That was until he laughed at me._

"_It's not about the age kid," he explained to me, his voice accenting the last word as mine had done before. "It's about the life experience."_

"_What makes you think I don't have life experience?" I snapped, not really thinking about what the hell to say to back that up because I didn't have any life experience. I may have been in Hollywood, but I certainly didn't live that kind of life. I was a fairly well-adjusted 14-year old girl still living with her parents. _

_Kyle laughed at me and I felt my face burn with both anger and embarrassment. "Seriously?" he asked me, still chuckling. "Kid, you're on a film set with your Mom. I don't think I've had my parents on set with me since I was about 10 and even then that was because I was working on one of their movies."_

_I spoke without thinking. It was a reflex at the fact that this guy, who I wanted so much to be like, was making fun of me. "It's not exactly my choice that she's here," I lied. "She just follows me around from movie set to movie set because she has nothing better to do. It's like nesting syndrome or whatever." Even as I was saying them the words left a funny taste in my mouth. I wanted to take them back, but I didn't want to lose face with Kyle._

_Kyle sat back and appraised me whilst I tried to keep my face completely expressionless, almost bored even. "So why don't you just tell her to go?" he questioned._

"_Because she'd totally go off the deep end," I kept going with my lies. "I once told her that I didn't want her to pick me up from some audition and she had to go and see a shrink." _

_Kyle laughed and suddenly, I felt a little better about the lies I was telling him. I was just proving to him that I could fit in with the group of people he hung around with and Renee would never know about the lies that had come out of my mouth. The truth was that I was extremely grateful that my Mom came to movie sets with me. She took my mind off work when I had to some particularly hard scenes or when I'd had a really horrible day. She was my best friend and I couldn't imagine doing this without her._

"_You know, you may be alright kid," he said, winking at me and this time, I felt as if the nickname wasn't meant to patronise anymore. He held out his pack of cigarettes and offered me one. I had heard all about peer pressure from both Renee and Charlie, but right now even with their words ringing in my ears, I couldn't help but stretch out my hand to accept the welcoming gesture that Kyle was extending to me._

I didn't know then that my life would change with that conversation and not just in the sense that I would become a nicotine addict and shorten my life expectancy. I couldn't even begin to conceive how those words would forever alter my relationship with my mother – if I had, maybe I wouldn't have tried so hard to be accepted by someone I later found out was an absolute asshole anyway. The appeal of Kyle Ludlow had severely diminished when I found out that he had slept with more than half the extras on set and had tossed them away when he was done with them. I finally saw him for the dick that he was and it definitely helped shatter my illusions of what being accepted in Hollywood entailed. I realised that I was happier being myself than trying to fit in with what Kyle and his friends deemed to be appropriate behaviour. Too bad I didn't realise that before I irrevocably ruined my relationship with my mother.

I turned onto the street that held our apartment blocks, wondering what I was supposed to do about the whole situation with Renee. I had apologised to her, but I think it was a case of too little far too late. I only wished that I could have realised where the distance came from years before so that I could have done something to fix it. I knew I couldn't talk to either Sam or my father about it because it was quite clear that Renee had never told them the entire truth of our situation. I was more than a little glad that she hadn't; I didn't need both my father and my older brother hating me when my Mom already did. It was a moment of complete idiocy and I wished more than anything I could go back, talk to my 15-year old self and give her a swift kick up the ass.

I walked up the stairs to my empty apartment and was extremely surprised to find a very familiar figure outside of my door, looking like he had been knocking on it.

"Edward?" I asked, wondering what he wanted at 10 o'clock at night.

He spun around and grinned at me, pizza box in one hand a six-pack of beers in another. "Hey Bella," he greeted. "I was thinking that we should probably run some lines tonight."

I eyed the items in his hands suspiciously. "With beer and pizza?"

"We need nourishment," he explained. "So, you up for it?"

I laughed at him and rolled my eyes, trying to hide the fact that I was more than up for it. After the memories I had just run through in my head, I needed someone to take my mind off it. I opened the door to my apartment as he started telling me about his afternoon at the studio, making me laugh as he told one self-deprecating tale after another. He was successfully distracting me from my miserable thoughts and I don't think he even knew what it was he was doing. It seemed as if Edward Cullen could read my mind and anticipate exactly what I needed. This friendship was turning out extremely well; if only everything else in my life was going as well as this.

*

My alarm was blaring louder and louder as it called me from a deep slumber. I tried to move to shut the thing off, but every muscle in my body groaned in protest at the attempted movements. I opened my eyes gingerly, wondering what the hell had happened to me that made me hurt so much that all I wanted to do was lie completely still and practice the art of _willing_ something to happen. I rolled over preparing to just knock the damn alarm off the night stand, but instead found myself being introduced to the floor.

"Ouch!" the floor complained and I was so surprised to find my bed had shrunk in the middle of the night that it took me a while to realise that floors didn't speak – and nor did they move.

"What the hell?" I asked, struggling to get up and finding myself pushing against Edward Cullen's chest.

"That's exactly what I was just thinking," Edward mumbled, grabbing my hands to stop me from pushing and clawing at him. "If this is how you act with all your friends Bella, you're going to get a reputation."

I took my hand back and hit him hard before jumping up and getting off of him. "What the hell are you doing here Edward?"

"Getting beaten up by a hundred pound girl in my sleep apparently," he said, sitting up. "What's up with you?"

I shook my head and started walking to the kitchen. "What happened last night?"

Edward followed me and just shrugged. "The last thing I remember was you trying to kiss me," he told me.

I rolled my eyes. "That was rehearsal Edward. That or you were dreaming."

"Oh Bella," he chuckled. "If it were a dream, you would be doing much more than trying to kiss me."

I almost dropped the cup I was holding, which caused Edward to laugh heartily. I scowled at him and carried on making coffee for the both of us, wondering what we had been doing prior to falling asleep in my lounge. I remembered a lot of laughing and not too much rehearsing. Funnily enough, we hadn't drunk that much beer either, which was precisely why I didn't understand why neither of us could exactly remember what had happened last night. It wasn't really too important, nothing had happened between Edward and I; it wasn't like I was worried whether or not I had cheated on my boyfriend with my co-star. Sure Edward was attractive – extremely so in fact; he had the sort of face that only got better every single time you looked at him. Still, he wasn't my type. My type was my boyfriend and he was definitely not Edward Cullen. Even if I with Jake, I really don't think Edward and I would have worked very well together. We were too similar in some ways and too different in others to really work in a relationship.

Thinking about Jacob made me feel a little guilty, though not in relation to Edward falling asleep in my apartment. I was feeling guilty about the way I had been avoiding him recently and the way I'd kind of brushed off his concerns yesterday. I promised myself that I would email him the first chance I got today to explain exactly what had happened. In fact, I would call him – as soon as I found my abandoned cell phone. I was now ready to face the memories of Friday, ready to tell Jake about everything and ready to have him help me through the mess that I'd made. I really had been the worst girlfriend in the world lately and I sometimes wondered why the hell Jake was still with me. He was a great guy; good looking, funny, sensitive and patient. He could have been with someone who wasn't so screwed up, but yet he had chosen to be with me and chose to remain with me every day, even if I was effectively ignoring all his calls and most of his attempts to contact me. Jesus, if it were the other way around, I'm pretty sure I would have dumped my ass long ago.

I placed a cup of coffee in front of Edward and marvelled at the fact that even though he had obviously slept on the floor, he looked extremely relaxed and well rested. I, on the other hand, could still feel the effects of spending six hours sleeping on a rather uncomfortable couch. He grinned at me in thanks and took a small sip of the steaming hot liquid even though he knew that it would still be too hot to drink seeing as he didn't take milk with his coffee.

"Well, last night wasn't very productive," he began.

I nodded my head in agreement. "We have to make sure that tonight will be far more work-orientated then."

Edward raised his eyebrow in a questioning manner. "One night with me and you're already planning more?" he asked, smirking all the while. "I'm not sure your boyfriend will approve of this Bella."

I opened my mouth to tell him to shut the hell up when a voice spoke out from behind Edward that stopped my heart from beating.

"No, I'm not sure your boyfriend would approve of this either Bella," Jake agreed with Edward.

Holy shit!

* * *

**AN: Thank you very much to everyone who reads this and for everyone who reviews. I've answered every single one of your reviews individually, but thank you again because I really do enjoy reading what you think about what's happening and where you think it'll go. I hope I haven't disappointed anyone too much with the revelations in this chapter; I feel like I built up stuff with all the cliffhangers and I don't want anyone to feel short-changed. So, if you do, I'm really sorry. **


	13. Chapter 13 On Letting Go

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 13: BPOV**

Edward left as soon as he possibly could, mumbling a quick apology to me and an 'It's not what it looks like' to Jake as he walked out of the kitchen. I felt like I had stopped breathing when I heard Jacob's voice echo Edward's words and I still wasn't breathing now as I waited for the door of my apartment to close and for Jacob to blow up in front of me. His eyes were flashing dangerously and I knew from past experience that this would not be a quiet discussion between two people. This would be Jacob blowing up at me and me fumbling about for words to say that would make him see sense. I heard the door click and steeled myself for the outburst.

"What the hell was that?" his voice wasn't loud, but it was strained from his trying to control it.

"That was just two people joking around Jacob," I told him evenly. I was hoping that my calm handling of the situation would force him to see it rationally. He knew I would never cheat on him and he knew that I wouldn't lie to him.

"Who was that Bella?" he asked, his voice rising in volume now.

"Edward," I informed him quickly. I wanted a chance to explain what he had seen and heard before he really got into stride with his tirade. "He's playing the male lead in the film and we were just running lines together."

"What did he mean one night with him?" I really wanted to beat Edward up for always making jokes to try and make me squirm.

"Er...we were running lines last night and he fell asleep on the floor in the living room."

Jake's eyes nearly popped out of his head in disbelief and if I hadn't been so worried about how he perceived the situation, I would have laughed. As it was, I could only look up at him nervously, willing him to see that nothing was going on between me and Edward; he had just walked in at the single more inappropriate time. Which led me to question how the hell he got in at all? The apartment door wouldn't open unless you had the key. Sue had clearly given Jake a spare key to this place. How very helpful of her.

Jake closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face – his way of trying to calm himself down before he completely blew a fuse. He opened his eyes again as his hand reached his chin and looked at me long and hard, as if trying to decide whether or not he could trust the words that were coming out of my mouth. I found myself getting rather pissed off the longer I stood there with him not saying anything, merely standing in judgement of me. He should know by now that I wasn't the type of girl to cheat and I certainly wouldn't lie to his face about it. Jake knew me almost better than anyone else and if he actually believed that I would cheat on him then I was going to be the one who would explode with anger.

"I think we need a break," he almost whispered after about ten minutes of silence where he looked at me and I looked back at him defiantly.

That stopped my anger in its tracks quite effectively and I had to ask him to repeat what he's just said because I couldn't be hearing it properly.

"I think we need a break." There was no mistaking that statement now.

My mouth opened in shock and I looked at him completely aghast. "Because I was running lines with my male co-star and he just happened to fall asleep here?" I was pissed off. I couldn't believe he could think the very worst thing of me the first time he has ever seen me in a semi-compromising situation. Did he not trust me at all?

"No Bella," he explained. "We need a break because you stopped speaking to me for about five days and you think that's okay. You get on a plane to the other side of the country without telling me and you think that sending me an email to tell me you're alright is fine. We need a break because you don't consider me an important part of your life anymore."

His words knocked me backwards; such was the force of utter astonishment I felt upon hearing them. Of course I considered him to be an important part of my life. He was my boyfriend and my best friend; he was a huge part of my life. I couldn't even fathom why he would think he wasn't important to me. It took me a while to gather enough brain power to speak and even then it was only one word.

"What?"

Jacob looked at me and I noted that his eyes were no longer fired up with anger, but instead they were filled with pain. "You obviously have a lot of stuff going on Bella," he explained, his voice softening. "You need to figure out what the hell you want because I don't think you know anymore."

"Jake please," I choked out, still unable to grasp the fact that my boyfriend of three years was now standing in front of me telling me that we needed to have a break.

"Bells," he said, his voice pleading with me, but I didn't know what he wanted. I wanted to give it to him, but I didn't know what the hell he was asking of me. He took several steps towards me, but I couldn't move. I was completely frozen in a state of shock. "You know I love you and you know I'd do anything for you, but I can't sit back and pretend that we're okay."

I continued to just stare at him stupidly, hearing the words coming out of his mouth, but not really understanding what they meant. I was finding it very hard to control my breathing right now, never mind try to concentrate on what Jake was telling me.

"I don't feel like you're really invested in this relationship anymore Bella and I don't like feeling like this is one-sided."

I found the voice I needed to speak at his comment. "It's not," I protested. "I love you Jake."

He smiled at me sadly. "That's not the question here," he told me and once again I was left in a state of confusion. It was so unfair that he was springing me on this because I had no idea where any of this was coming from so I couldn't argue with any of the points he was making. "I know you love me Bella, but do you still want to be with me? Are you still in love with me? Is this relationship still important enough for you to work for? Because at the moment, it doesn't feel like that."

I didn't know what to say. This conversation had not gone the way I thought it would when Jacob turned up this morning. I had not seen this coming at all. Jacob had always been my port in the storm, but now when everything around me was being caught up in the tornado, he was going along for the ride. I couldn't put my thoughts together enough to refute anything he was saying. Everything was going too fast and nothing was making sense. I began to feel like I was in a fucking nightmare, but the knock on my door and the driver on the other side calling my name threw that theory straight out of the window.

"You need to go to work," Jacob told me whilst I just stood in my kitchen unable to do anything but stare stupidly at him.

"We need to finish this conversation," I argued back. I wanted to be able to defend myself and the way I had been acting lately to Jacob so it wouldn't seem like I had just rolled over and let him rip our relationship apart. I did care about him and I sure as hell cared about the three years we'd spent together; I didn't want him to doubt and belittle that.

"I'll be here when you get back from the set Bella," he assured me. "You're right; we do have to finish this conversation."

Jacob seemed far too calm about the whole situation. In fact, he was the one that opened the door to the driver, explaining that I would be a little late and would be out in ten minutes. I was on autopilot as I washed, brushed my teeth and pulled some new clothes on faster than I had ever done in my life. There were no coherent thoughts in my head, just echoes of Jacob's voice saying that we needed a break and questioning my love for him and my devotion to our relationship. I didn't even register the fact that I was alone in the back of the black car until I was almost at the lot. It seemed as if Edward was slightly afraid of what would be awaiting him had he shared a car with me and I couldn't blame him. The look on Jake's face had been almost murderous when he saw Edward in my apartment and I was still astounded at how quickly he turned from angry to completely emotionless as he told me that he wanted to take a break from our relationship.

I had no idea how to handle this. Jake had been my only boyfriend and we had never been this close to breaking up before. We had fought several times over the years and had said several hurtful things to each other in the heat of the moment, but the way he spoke to me as we stood looking at each other in my small apartment made it seem like he had considered this; it seemed as if Jake had been thinking about doing this for a while. How else could he have been so controlled? FUCK! How had my life gotten like this? I felt like I was holding all the pieces of my life in my hands and each part was just slipping through my fingers because I wasn't fast enough to realise that they were slipping in the first place.

*

The morning had been a nightmare; my mind wasn't on the job at all and I had messed up all my lines in every single scene I ran through and the only positive thing to say about it was that at least we weren't filming. Alice had tried to talk to me after watching me stutter through my scene with the Peter and Rachel, who were playing Kristen's parents, but I didn't want to talk to her. I shook my head as she approached me and stopped her from coming any closer. Her expression was one of bewildered concern, but I just turned around and walked away. I didn't even know in which direction I was walking, but I suddenly found myself in front of a very small old church. I debated whether or not I should go in; I had never been religious and I wasn't entirely sure I believed in a god, but at the moment, I was craving the solitude and the peace of mind that people often described they got from places of worship.

I walked in before I could question it any further and found that I wasn't the only person in there even though it was eleven thirty in the morning. I sat down in the nearest pew and looked around me, not at the people, but at the building. The stained glass of the high windows reflected patterns of light onto the walls and the floor that shifted and changed each time a cloud passed over the bright sun outside. I marvelled at the ornate statues that stood at the front of the building and decorated the sides of it, nestled in their own little alcoves. I hadn't been in many churches and I wondered if they were all like this, or if this one was particularly special. There were about eight people inside, including myself and although three of them were on their knees in obvious prayer, the others were sitting on the bench looking around them, just like I was. I wondered what these people were doing here; were they here for absolution or were they here in gratitude? For that matter, what was _I_ here for?

I was here to look for answers to questions I didn't even know to ask, but would I find them in a building which housed a faith and belief I didn't share? Right now, my more immediate problem was Jacob. He had asked me whether I loved him and the answer was, of course, an emphatic yes. True, I had been quite absent within our relationship lately and not just physically; I had been distant and preoccupied for a long time, but that was because other things had gotten in the way. I had to acknowledge the fact that he had been putting far more effort into keeping our relationship afloat for a while, but I honestly didn't know he minded – well, not this much anyway. I guess I didn't know my boyfriend well enough. No, that wasn't true either; I knew that Jacob was getting to the end of his patience with me, knew that I'd so far been extremely lucky that he hadn't broken up with me. Yet, even though I kept promising both of us that I would change and make more of an effort, I seemed to be going the completely other direction; I seemed to be forcing a distance between us myself for reason I couldn't even begin to guess at.

So, the next question – did I still even want to be in a relationship? When I stood before him this morning, desperately trying to get him to believe the truth about the innocence of the situation her had walked in on with Edward, I hadn't even considered that we would be breaking up. I had been with Jacob for so long that I literally hadn't considered what it would be like to be alone and now that I was being forced to do just that; it scared the hell out of me. I've never considered myself the type of girl who needed a man in her life, but I was now beginning to think that maybe that was because I've always had a boyfriend. Jacob and I pretty much grew up being together and when my friendship with my mother broke down, he took over the role as my best friend and confidant seamlessly. I couldn't imagine _not_ having him in my life, but was that the same as still wanting to be together? Was I keeping Jacob around because I didn't know how to be by myself?

I absolutely hated the thought of that being true, but I couldn't run away from the fact that it may have been. Sure, I loved Jacob, but surely my actions within the past few months of our relationship had proven that I didn't know how to be someone's girlfriend. My life, as he'd rightly said, was going through so much upheaval right now and he had too easily faded into the background. Jacob deserved better; he deserved someone who didn't hold as much baggage; someone who would put him above and beyond everything else in their lives. I had thought that someone would always be me, but now it was quite clear that it was not. To be completely honest, I still wanted to be with Jake, but I wasn't entirely sure it was for the reasons that I should want to be and that wasn't fair to either of us. Jacob came to tell me that he needed time away from _'us'_ and even though I didn't really want to give it to him, was it best that I did?

This was one of those times where I wished that my boyfriend wasn't also my best friend because then I'd have someone else to talk to about this whole situation. Self-reflection is all very well and good, but you can only reflect based on your opinions and I needed someone who was objective in this matter to give me another side of the argument. I sighed deeply and walked out of the building, not quite as confused as when I walked into it, but certainly still at a loss for what to do. There was a temptation to try and convince Jacob that he had been over-reacting; that there was absolutely nothing wrong with our relationship apart from the busy schedules we were keeping. I think I could probably convince him, but I didn't know if that was the best thing to do in this situation. I had been sweeping all our issues under the rug until now it had formed a mountain in the middle of my living room and I could no longer ignore it. I didn't want him thinking I'd given up on us though; I didn't want him to think that I didn't want to fight for our relationship. So why wasn't I fighting? I did care about him and I didn't really want to break up; surely giving him this space only proved him right when he said that I wasn't invested in the relationship.

I huffed out a deep breath – I was talking myself around in damn circles. One minute I was about to agree to this trial separation and the next, I wanted to ask him to just stay patient with me while I worked my shit out. Which one was the better option for the both of us? Which decision would I regret the least when I looked back at this point in my life? I looked at my phone for the time, wondering whether I had to be back at the set yet and then wondering if I could actually find my way back there. I hadn't exactly been looking at my surroundings when I was walking earlier and I didn't know precisely where I was in relation to where I needed to be – what a great euphemism for by god damn life!

*

The next time I saw Edward, he was just coming back from the studio where he'd been spending every afternoon since we started rehearsal. His car was pulling up to our apartment block as I walked up to the gates; I had asked to be dropped off a couple of blocks away just so that I could prolong the inevitable conversation I needed to have – and so I could get a pack of cigarettes. He spotted me as he turned and closed the door of the car, shooting me a small smile and a hesitant wave. I didn't completely understand the look of relief that undoubtedly crossed his face when he first saw me, but it was gone the next second so it must have been my imagination. He looked unsure as to whether or not he should go inside to his apartment or come and talk to me, probably afraid that he would make a bad situation worse because of this morning. Little did he know that the situation had escalated so far beyond his presence in my apartment that it was now relegated to some distant part of my memory.

"Hey," he greeted, smiling warily. It was kind of...cute, the way Edward looked like he was waiting for me to start reaming him out about his comment this morning.

I decided that it would be more than a little fun – and only fair – if I played with him a little bit. "Hey," I repeated stoically, not giving anything away; I just continued to inhale from my cigarette, looking at him.

Edward nodded his head and the two of us just stood there looking at each other for a minute, neither one willing to break the silence that had descended, though for probably very different reasons. It was a bit of an unfair contest, given that I had something to occupy both my hands and my mouth with whilst Edward was just standing on a street corner looking just a tad uncomfortable. It wasn't surprising that he broke first.

"I didn't know you smoked." I started a bit at his words, not because they were said with any kind of judgement, but because I didn't know that I had never smoked in front of him.

I frowned, trying to remember all the times we'd hung out and to my surprise, it seemed as if I really hadn't lit up in front of Edward. Strange. Still, I was smoking in front of him now and I was a little curious as to what he thought about it. I assumed that Edward didn't smoke, given the fact that his lifestyle seemed pretty healthy and I had never seen him with a small white stick in his hands or between his lips. Then again, he had never seen me smoke in the time we had known each other either and I definitely was a nicotine addict.

I shrugged nonchalantly in response, still not breaking character because I wanted him to bring up this morning first; I wanted him to sweat just a little bit. "Is that a problem?"

He shook his head quickly and started saying no almost before the question had fully left my lips. "No, god no," he repeated. "I mean I was in Europe for a good part of a year and even if I had any qualms about smoking before, it would definitely have been wiped clean after. It's just that you never smell like cigarettes that's all."

I wanted to smile at his slight panic, but instead just nodded my head. We continued to stand there, not speaking to each other for another couple of minutes whilst I finished off the remainder of my addiction. Edward was fidgeting like crazy, which he did often when he was nervous. It was like a special routine; he would tap his right foot, run a hand through his already messy hair, pull on his ear and then tap his fingers on the side of his leg. He would do these things in a cyclical fashion until something happened to break him out of the nervous state he had probably built in his own head. There were many mannerisms Edward had which I found rather strange and amusing and this was probably the best of them all; it belied his true nature, which was the complete opposite of how I first thought he was going to be. I had expected Edward to be a cock-sure pretty boy with too much time on his hands and not nearly enough talent. Instead, he had been immensely talented, dedicated and just a touch awkward, but in the most interesting way; Edward just didn't seem to see himself the way he appeared to the rest of the world.

I started walking away after putting my butt out, still not having said anything. I hadn't gotten very far when Edward's voice called out from behind me. "I'm sorry." I turned and raised an eyebrow at him in question, lips still not moving to form words. He looked at me for a second before continuing on, apparently deciding that I wasn't going to say anything. "I'm really sorry if I caused any kind of trouble with you and your boyfriend this morning. I honestly didn't mean to."

He had shifted his eyes from my face, to the ground, over my head and back to my eyes again and I felt extremely guilty for the look of remorse on his face. I was about to tell him that it was all fine and I'd only been playing with him when he started speaking again; apparently now that he had opened the flood gates, he couldn't stop. "Nothing even happened last night," he explained rapidly. "I know you said you couldn't remember much, but we literally fell asleep watching some infomercial at one thirty this morning. I can tell your boyfriend that too. I'm really sorry for leaving this morning as well; that was such a shitty thing to do, leaving you there to take all the heat. I just didn't want to make matters worse, you know. I'm so sorry Bella."

I was a bit taken aback by the profuse apologising that Edward was now doing; the man had serious issues about feeling responsible for everything and I had a feeling that this had been building all day in his mind. I suddenly felt like a bitch for trying to tease him about this when it was obvious he had been beating himself up about it throughout the day, thinking that he'd caused some sort of cataclysmic fight between Jake and me. Again, another example of me not thinking things through before actually acting – the story of my life apparently.

I bit my lip as I watched his jade eyes search my face hesitantly for signs of either acceptance or rejection of his apology. "It's fine Edward," I assured him, stepping closer and putting my hand on his arm, which was currently raking through his hair. "I was only kidding just then – a bad joke yes, but a joke nonetheless." I paused and smiled wryly at him, wanting him to smile back at me so that I knew he didn't think I was a complete bitch. "Jake and I are fine." Lie, but as far as his presence this morning went, Jake and I were fine.

He took a deep breath and regarded me for a long moment, as if deciding whether or not I was telling him the truth. "He wasn't mad about my being there this morning then and about what I said this morning?"

I shrugged. "He was in the beginning," I answered honestly because he wouldn't believe me at all if I'd said that Jake just laughed about it and we went about our day like it had never happened. "But he got over it." Only because he had something else that was on his mind, of course, but that was far more information than Edward needed. I wondered briefly whether I should – or could – share what was happening between Jake and I with him. Edward was an objective party right? And he would give me the male perspective on everything. Really, he was the perfect person for me to confide my current relationship problems with.

He still looked a bit sceptical, but he nodded and walked forwards, towards me and the apartment block. If I wanted to talk to him about it, I would have to do it before I went back inside my apartment to talk to Jake. Jacob would want some sort of resolution to this tonight and not just because he had a job to go back to and he wasn't the only one. I didn't want to drag this whole thing with Jake and I out any longer than it had to because it was hard enough to handle one crisis at a time, never mind two.

"Edward wait," I called to him. He turned and looked at me questioningly. "What are you doing right now?"

He shrugged. "Nothing much," he admitted. "I have a few phone calls to make, there's dinner and then I'll probably just read through some lines ready for our scenes tomorrow. Why?"

I bit my lip in a moment's hesitation. Was I ready to reveal this much of myself to someone I had known for barely a month? I looked at Edward and saw the concern mixing with the confusion and I knew that if anyone would understand, it was Edward. After all, hadn't I thought myself that he understood things I didn't even realise needed comprehending. I didn't know why I hadn't immediately thought of him this afternoon when I really needed someone to talk to about the chaotic thoughts in my head. Still, it wasn't easy to lay myself bare to someone else; I wasn't used to it and I didn't exactly like the feeling of vulnerability that ultimately came with this kind of sharing. I wondered whether Edward could tell that something wasn't right as we stood facing each other, with me displaying my own set of nervous ticks.

"Come on," he invited, walking back towards me. "Let me take you somewhere I used to love going when I lived here."

With that, he walked slightly in front of me, leading me away from my waiting boyfriend. I followed him without hesitation, wondering whether or not this was just another example of me running away from my problems.

*

"Columbia?" I asked, surprised at his choice of location. "Your favourite place in the entire of New York is a college campus?" Edward nodded his head in front of me, leading me further into the Ivy League grounds. "I thought you didn't even go to college."

"I didn't," he confirmed, turning his head and smiling back at me. "Doesn't mean I can't appreciate education and the establishments that provide it."

I frowned, wondering what he meant by that and then deciding that perhaps I didn't want to know after all. I decided to just follow him without asking anymore questions, hoping that the reasons for this being one of his favourite places would become evident once we reached exactly where he wanted to go. As we walked through the large campus, I had to admit that this place was extremely scenic, with its old buildings and the carefully planned patches of greenery. It certainly spoke of academia and knowledge from the pillared buildings to the groups of students sprawled out across the grass with books in their hands or on their laps. Not for the first time, I wished that I had chosen to experience this kind of atmosphere; it seemed so much easier, so much more normal.

"We're here," Edward finally announced and I noticed that we had left the busiest part to find an area surrounded by compact buildings and trees set out in a circular pattern. A tall statue stood on the middle of the circular area and benches were found attached to the walls of the buildings. It was a very quiet, very private area that made me smile, not just because it was such a quaint space in the middle of a busy campus, but also because obviously Edward had correctly interpreted that I needed to go somewhere private. Maybe it should have disturbed me a little that he could read me so easily and knew me so well even after only a month of knowing me, but it didn't. Instead I was grateful that there was someone who could understand the things I couldn't even voice; it was an oddly comforting feeling.

He sat on one of the benches whilst I walked around the small space, looking at the statue and the buildings surrounding us. For a while, neither of us said a thing, but I was aware of Edward's eyes following my movements periodically. I knew that he must have been extremely perplexed about why I was acting in such a strange manner, but he didn't press me and I was fairly certain that if I told him that I wanted to go back to the apartment, he would have gone with me without another word; that thought made me smile. Finally, I sat down on a separate bench not too far away from where he was and looked at the trees around us as I started speaking.

"Jake and I had a huge fight after you left," I admitted, the words rushing out of my mouth much quieter than I had intended them to be. I wasn't sure that Edward had actually heard me until he started to apologise again. "It wasn't anything to do with you."

I glanced over at him and saw his nod of encouragement. "There have been a lot of things going on with me lately, which I guess you may have gathered from the texts and the conversations we were having whilst you were in London. It's all been pretty taxing on me and my relationship with Jacob." I paused. I didn't know how much of what had been going on in my life lately I wanted to reveal to Edward. I wanted his advice on what I should do about the whole Jacob thing, but I didn't want him to know about my problems with my Mom. I looked down on the floor, trying to find the right balance of information so that he knew the full story without actually giving him the full story.

"I was in Maryland," Edward's voice broke through my jumbled thoughts. I snapped my head up in surprise and bewilderment. "The week I re-arranged my second audition, I was in Maryland visiting my Mom." My mouth opened into a small 'o' of realisation; Edward was telling me something private about his life so that I would feel more comfortable in sharing whatever I was thinking with him. "My Mom...she lives, well, she's kind of in a home there and I had to go and visit her."

He wasn't looking at me, but I studied the way he was now constantly running his hands through his unruly hair and jiggling his feet, moving them from the floor to his knee and back to the floor. I could tell that it was hard for him to tell me this and I knew that like me, he wasn't giving everything away, but it was enough and I was thankful that he had shared even that with me. Edward didn't need to share anything, because after all, it had been my idea to talk to him, not the other way around.

"Jake and I have been having issues for a while," I confessed finally, the words having to actually be forced out of my mouth. "I just...I don't know where to go from where we are because I think we may want different things right now. Certainly, we definitely have a different focus in our lives and different priorities." As I heard the words, I wondered when we had grown so far apart. Jake and I used to share everything and _be_ everything to each other, but now it certainly sounded like we were heading in completely different directions.

"I left LA without telling him," I admitted, my voice softer than it had been because I did feel extremely bad about how I had handled the situation, looking back. "I have a whole separate matter that I don't really want to go into, but that all blew up and I just had to get the hell out of town. I didn't think of anything or anyone else, I just left." I cringed at how selfish that sounded, but really, nothing about this whole Jake thing was going to make me seem like the best person in the world and I only hoped that Edward still wanted to be my friend after he heard some of this.

I glanced at him again and saw there he was looking at me, but there was certainly no judgement in his eyes; he looked curious and I could tell there were a million questions running through his mind right now, but he wasn't looking at me like he thought I was an awful person. "Sometimes you just have to go," he told me, surprising me with his agreement. "It doesn't make you a bad person to want to look after yourself Bella and sometimes we don't always think about the consequences of our actions, but everyone is the same."

Oh, if only he knew just how much I didn't think about the consequences of my actions. I appreciated what he was trying to do though; he was trying to tell me that I wasn't any different to anyone else. I wasn't the grossly selfish bitch that didn't care about anyone else; I was just another person who had their own problems.

"Jake thinks we should take a break," I told him, this time not bringing my eyes away from his face. I wanted to see his instant reaction to that news.

Edward's face was completely impassive and I felt a little annoyed at the fact that he seemed to be able to read me very well, but I didn't really know what was going on with him half the time. I mean sure, sometimes Edward was like an open book, but there were other times when I just couldn't even begin to guess what was going on in his head; this was one of those times. I looked at him as he looked at me for a good few moments, neither of us speaking and both of us hardly moving at all.

"I take it you don't think the same thing?" he asked finally and I had to wonder if he had ever played the role of a psychologist because he sure was doing a good impression.

I shook my head. "I hadn't even thought about it. I mean sure my life's crazy at the moment, but Jake's been like...Jake's always been the steady part of it. He's always been the stable, dependable one in the relationship and I never thought that he would be the one to step back and leave." I hadn't answered his question, not directly because I honestly didn't know what the answer was.

He grinned at me knowingly and I knew that he wasn't going to let me get away with my non-answer. "That's not exactly answering my question though Bella." Seriously, give Edward some glasses, a clipboard and I wouldn't have been surprised if he asked me to pay for this session at the end.

I looked away from him, stood up and walked around the enclosed space. I wanted his help in deciding what was the best thing to do and in order to get his help, I was going to have to tell him what I was thinking, what I had been thinking all day. "I love him," I said to the open air around us. "I still love him, so no, I didn't think that we should break up, but..." I paused and took a deep breath; this was very hard and I didn't understand why people would pay money for this feeling of scrutiny. "I don't know whether I love him for the right reasons anymore."

I stopped walking as the words tumbled out of my mouth, shocked at having even thought about them, let alone said them. To say I was stunned would have been a gross understatement; I was absolutely flabbergasted by my own admission. Yet, as unprepared as I was for the words to come from my mouth, I also knew that they were true. But what the hell did that mean? I spun around to see what Edward thought of my confession and saw only contemplation in his eyes.

"Can you love someone for the wrong reasons?" Edward asked me after what seemed like hours of silence, but what was only probably a couple of minutes. I shrugged; wasn't he supposed to be the one giving me answers? Edward looked at me for a beat longer than normal before carrying on. "I don't think that you can Bella, but you can certainly stay in a relationship for the wrong reasons."

He spoke in a way that made me think he had experience in the matter, but this was not the time to satisfy my curiosity about Edward's life beyond our friendship. "So you think we should take a break?"

Edward shook his head. "I'm in no position to tell you what to do about your love life Bella," he said and I wanted to groan in frustration; that was exactly what I wanted him to do. I was just getting ready to tell him that I _needed_ him to tell me because I had absolutely no idea what to do myself, when he spoke again. "I don't know your boyfriend or how your relationship is, but don't stay in a relationship just because it's comfortable – that's not fair on anyone."

His last sentence stopped the words I had wanted to say to him from coming out of my mouth. Was I just with Jake because it was a comfortable relationship? I didn't think so; I did love him and I was with him because I wanted to be. Wasn't I? Surely if I wanted out of the relationship, I would have just agreed with him this morning; it would have been easy to after all.

"I'm not with him just because it's comfortable Edward," I told him. "Like I said, I do love him. It's just...I think I need to step back." Again, I wasn't aware that the words coming out of my mouth had ever been thoughts in my head. "I need time to fix the rest of my life before I can repair my relationship with him because I think we both know that it does need fixing."

"Then it sounds like you agree with him," Edward commented. "I think that Jake was probably thinking along the same lines Bella. I can't imagine that he doesn't love you too."

I nodded, biting my lip and running a hand through my hair. I caught myself doing it the third time and almost laughed out loud; I was spending far too much time with Edward Cullen. He furrowed his brows in question of the smile that broke out instead of the laughter, but I didn't answer his silent question.

"It's not about whether we _need_ the break Edward," I told him, finally realising that this talk wasn't really about that. It seemed as if I had in fact pretty much made up my mind that Jacob and I could do with some time apart. I just couldn't stand the thought of hurting him anymore than I already had and I certainly didn't like the fact that he kept being dragged into the drama at home. "I don't want him to think that I don't love him and I feel like if I don't fight him on this, that's exactly what it'll look like."

A look of comprehension finally settled over Edward's face as I told him the real crux of my worries. He walked over to me, stopping just before me so that he could stretch out his hand to squeeze my shoulder in a comforting manner. The gesture wasn't entirely comfortable, but considering that Edward and I didn't exactly have a physically close friendship, it was good enough and it did make me feel a lot better.

"Admitting that you both need time out doesn't mean that you don't care about each other or your relationship," Edward assured me. "It just means that you're both grown up enough and trust each other enough to give yourselves a bit of room to breathe and to grow. If you don't take a step back Bella, it sound like it'll just go to hell that much quicker and in a much more painful way."

I nodded my head, agreeing with everything he said, but still scared out of my mind that this wouldn't just be the short break I was envisioning. I felt Edward's hand leave my shoulder, but only so that he could put his arm around my other one and pull me into him. This gesture was far more comfortable and I had to resist the urge to use Edward as a shoulder to cry on literally. I felt like I had made the decision to put my dog down and I supposed I was facing a similar kind of loss. I knew it was the right thing to do; I knew it this morning and Edward had just helped confirm it in my mind. Jake and I...we needed time away from each other before we ended up hating each other because even though I knew this time apart would be hard, I don't think I could get over it if we ended up like that.

Edward and I stood together with his arm around me for a long time and I found that his presence was completely calming at this very moment. Usually, when Edward was around, I had a strange nervous energy that I just couldn't get rid of. It wasn't bad, it was just extremely tiring sometimes and even though I felt very comfortable with him, it was always as if there was something there that made me anxious. I put it down to just how I always was with people I didn't know very well and I guess now that Edward had revealed something important and personal to me – and I him – I was feeling much more at ease within our friendship. Finally, I squeezed him firmly and we both pulled away from each other. It was time for me to go back to the apartment and face Jake. We had a lot to talk about and it was no use putting them off any longer because it would just get worse with time.

I was about to tell Edward that we should go when his name was called by someone else that was definitely not me.

*

**EPOV**

I had been distracted all day, so much so that the producers at the studio told me to go home early because nothing was going right. That was why I was sat in the back of the car looking out at the familiar streets of Manhattan, heading back to the apartment two hours earlier than I should have been. I knew what was distracting me of course, guilt. I couldn't believe what a coward I'd been, running out on Bella when her boyfriend showed up unexpectedly and then not even waiting for her to ride to the set together. I was the worst kind of friend – the worst kind of _person_ – because not only did I run away like a fucking pussy, I was also the one who created the situation in the first place. I had never met Bella's boyfriend and she didn't talk about him much, so I didn't know if he was capable of flying into a violent rage. Rationally, I knew that Bella would never be stupid enough to stay with someone who was abusive or violent, but it didn't stop the thoughts from making rounds in my head. I wanted to call her, but I didn't want to make it worse in case he had her phone. The scenarios going on in my head were ridiculous and overly-dramatic, I knew, but I guess guilt will do that to people.

We pulled up to the apartment building and I opened the door quickly, wanting to get up to see Bella, not only to apologise profusely for my behaviour this morning, but also to see if she was okay. I turned to shut my door and saw her walking up the sidewalk towards the building. I caught her eye and smiled reflexively, taking the chance to do a quick evaluation; she looked okay, perfectly healthy in fact and the amount of relief that I felt was beyond words. However, Bella didn't continue to walk towards me, instead choosing to lean against a wall by the corner of the street. I looked at her for a moment longer and noticed that she was smoking, something I didn't even know she did – obviously she was stressed out. Oh fuck, I was in for it. I debated for about half a second about going over to her or just going inside and waiting for her to come to me, but then I decided that I should grow some balls and go to her.

I walked over, my feet moving slower than they should have been because there was still a small part of my mind that thought I should be moving in the other direction. "Hey," I greeted when I got close enough for her to hear me. My voice wasn't as strong as usual and I could tell she would be able to detect the difference.

Bella's eyes drifted over my face as she sucked on her cigarette. If I wasn't worried about the possibility of her never wanting to talk to me again, I would have found this scene a little funny. It was the reversal of the usual bad boy smoking a cigarette whilst the good girl is drawn helplessly to him, powerless to stay away. It would have made a great scene in a very bad movie.

"Hey," Bella greeted back, her face closed off, but her eyes were directed at me. She continued to inhale from her cigarette and I got the feeling that she was more than a little pissed at me.

I didn't know what to say to her. I wanted to start apologising for being the biggest prick on the planet, but the words wouldn't come out of my mouth. I was transported back to the first day we met when I was so intimidated by her that I could barely look her in the eye. Now, along with that intimidation factor, I was afraid that she would cut short our friendship, which was, for all intents and purposes, an extremely new one. I didn't know what I should apologise for first – the shooting my mouth off, the running away or the fact that I had been too much of s coward to call her.

"I didn't know you smoked." Jesus. Those were the words that actually made it out of my mouth first? Really? Was I actually a glutton for punishment? Here I was trying to get her to forgive me for being a prick and the first real thing that comes out of my mouth was something judgemental. Brilliant. Real fucking genius moment.

I wanted to put my fist in my mouth to stop anything else stupid that may come out, but I didn't, instead watching as Bella frowned at me, eyes narrowing. "Is that a problem?" Her voice was biting, but I could completely understand why.

I was shaking my head and refuting it before she even got the words out of her mouth completely. I must have looked like a complete idiot, but to be honest that's exactly what I felt like. I mumbled some explanation about how cool I was with the whole smoking thing and then said something about the way she smelled. Holy shit! I really wasn't doing myself any favours in this conversation; I was just managing to sound more like a dick. It wasn't going well at all and maybe I should have just gone back up to my apartment because although it wouldn't have made the situation better, it certainly wouldn't have made it any worse.

She nodded her head at my pathetic rambling, but didn't say anything else, allowing me to talk myself silent. Really, I should have just stayed fucking silent and let her have a massive blow out at me. I didn't think Bella was the type of person to scream and shout in the middle of a sidewalk, but I probably would have deserved it right about now. I pressed my mouth shut so that I wouldn't say anything even more stupid than I already had; if I didn't talk, surely I couldn't make this any worse. Instead, I waited anxiously for Bella to say something, not being able to stay still like she was doing at the moment. She didn't say anything at all to me, just kept watching me and putting the cigarette to her mouth every once in a while. I felt like I was under her scrutiny and I was transported back to when I was ten, withering under the gaze of my teacher as she pretended to question everyone in the class about the death of the pet hamster. Then, I had spilled my guts out within about five minutes, even telling her that I had accidentally killed my own pet fish two months ago. Now, though I had to literally bite my tongue so that I wouldn't speak unnecessarily.

Bella dropped cigarette onto the sidewalk and moved her eyes from me in order to make sure that she had completely crushed the butt. I thought that she was going to take the time to hand me my sorry ass, but instead she just walked away, without so much as a glance back at me.

"I'm sorry," the words were out of my mouth before they registered in my head and I almost winced at the panic behind them; I really wouldn't hold up well under interrogation. It worked and she turned around, but her face was still rather harsh and she still hadn't said anything. "I'm really sorry if I caused any kind of trouble with you and your boyfriend this morning. I honestly didn't mean to." It wasn't the greatest apology in the world, but it was the best I could do and I really was sorry. I explained what happened last night and tried to get her to understand why I had left this morning even though I knew I absolutely shouldn't have and there were no excuses. I couldn't look her in the eyes as I talked, ashamed at my behaviour and afraid that I would see disappointment in them.

By the time I finished, I figured that I sounded pathetic enough for her to believe my sincerity and hopefully accept my apology. I maybe should have been wondering why her friendship meant so much to me when we had known each other for such a short amount of time, but I didn't want to waste my energy on that. When she didn't reply straight away, I finally settled my eyes on her face, wanting to know what she was thinking in that moment. Her eyes had softened quite incredibly and now she was looking like she wanted to apologise for something.

"It's fine Edward," she told me. She reached up to still my arm, which I hadn't even realised had been driving my hand through my hair over and over again. "I was only kidding back then – a bad joke yes, but a joke nonetheless." I should have felt a little indignant or angry at her words, but all I felt was relief; relief that she was still talking to me and wasn't in fact angry at me. She smiled. "Jake and I are fine."

I was incredibly happy and so fucking thankful that I hadn't completely fucked up that I didn't even care that Bella had nearly made me have a heart attack when she was pulling the whole 'queen bitch' routine back there. Nor did I give any mind to the tiny something in the back of my mind with the last thing she said. However, I wanted to make sure that Bella wasn't just saying those things to make me feel better about my actions this morning. I couldn't imagine why she would ever do such a thing after I abandoned her and left her to face the shit storm I had created, but it was something that Bella would do. I asked her whether Jake had been mad at all this morning, wanting the details so that I could assure myself that she was telling me the truth.

"He was in the beginning," she admitted and suddenly I felt like the shit people scraped off their shoes again. Jesus, I was having more mood swings than Rose did during her special time of the month; I needed to get a fucking grip. "But he got over it."

I was very nearly overwhelmed with the desire to know exactly how mad he got, just in case he'd done something to hurt Bella. I was being an idiot, I knew that. Maybe I was trying to justify exactly why I had been so distracted by the whole Bella situation all day when it seemed as if nothing had even happened. I did, however, manage to suppress the desire and instead walked by her side as we made our way back to the apartment buildings. I was so lost in my own thoughts about why I had been so bothered about Bella being angry at me that I didn't even realise she had stopped walking until she called out.

"What are you doing right now?" she asked when I had turned to face her.

I shrugged and wondered whether she wanted me to talk to her boyfriend so that he would see that I wasn't a threat. Rosalie often introduced men she was seeing to me when they started questioning our relationship just so they could quiz me themselves. I had gotten many of those men asking me whether or not I was gay when I told them that Rose just wasn't my type. The thing was, as I had realised on Monday night, Bella was my type. I then remembered that she was waiting for an answer.

"Nothing much," I said quickly. "I have a few phone calls to make, there's dinner and then I'll probably just read through some lines ready for our scenes tomorrow. Why?"

Bella continued looking at me, opening her mouth in an attempt to say something and then closing it again without ever having uttered a word. She pulled her top lip between her mouth and then released it, only to replace it with her bottom lip. Bella was anxious, much like I had been only ten minutes before, but I couldn't even begin to guess at what she had to be nervous about. Was she lying about Jake not being pissed? Was he still in her apartment and she didn't want to go back? Was I driving myself insane with these unfounded assumptions? Maybe, but she was definitely working up to something that she didn't particularly feel confident in doing. I took a deep breath and decided to do something that would hopefully make up for my absence and cowardice this morning.

I walked back towards her, jerking my head in the opposite direction to the apartments. "Come on, let me take you somewhere I used to love going when I lived here." I lead the way to the nearest subway station, wondering whether Bella would think it was weird for me to take her to the Columbia campus. I got a feeling that there was something on Bella's mind and even if she didn't want to talk to me about it, this place would definitely help clear her mind and organise her thoughts. I had met Claire in this very spot and had also broken up with her there – it was definitely somewhere clarity happened.

*

The words Bella was saying and the feelings she was expressing were all too familiar for me and I struggled to stop myself from giving her advice based on my own past relationship. I reminded myself throughout her speech that Jake and Bella were _not_ Claire and I no matter how much of a chord her thoughts struck with me. Bella's situation sounded far more complicated than mine did anyway and I knew I wouldn't be getting any more information on the complication today, if ever. I was kind of surprised that Bella wanted to talk to me at all about her problems with her boyfriend – it took me completely by surprise. I was also a little...humbled? Yes, that was the right word, sort of. I mean at the beginning of today, I thought I was going to have to do some major ass kissing so that I wouldn't be warring with my co-star before we even began filming. Now, she was sharing something _incredibly_ personal with me and trusting me to help her. When I told her that I had gone to see my Mom a few weeks back instead of turning up at the auditions for the film, it really hit me just how close Bella and I had become and I was rather stunned.

It wasn't that I didn't have a lot of close friends because I did and usually, I made friends pretty easily, but something about my relationship with Bella was a little different from all my others. Rosalie and I had become quite close pretty quickly, but those were under different circumstances; we had basically lived with each other for months as we travelled around Europe together. Rose and I had met at a time when we were both trying to escape from something in our lives and find something else in the world; it wasn't surprising that we bonded quite quickly. Bella and I on the other hand, didn't really have any of that binding us together. We had spent the majority of our friendship apart and yet I realised today that Bella's friendship had become very important to me very quickly.

"So you think we should take a break?" Bella's voice interrupted my musings. She wanted me to tell her what she should do, but I wasn't going to do that. I knew exactly what it was like to be in her shoes, wishing someone else had the answers you were looking for, but no one did. Bella was the only person in the world that knew whether it was right for her to break up with her boyfriend. I told her as much and had to hold back a smile at the flash of frustration that crossed her brown eyes.

"I'm not with him just because it's comfortable Edward. Like I said, I do love him. It's just..." she trailed off and I sensed that she was about to say something that would surprise her once more. "I think I need to step back." The revelation obviously shook her, but she continued. "I need time to fix the rest of my life before I can repair my relationship with him because I think we both know that it does need fixing."

I nodded in understanding, not agreement. "Then it sounds like you agree with him," I told her, knowing that she may have made this decision right now, but she was more than likely going to change her mind over and over again before she actually got back to talk to Jacob. "I think that Jake was probably thinking along the same lines Bella. I can't imagine that he doesn't love you too." Of course her boyfriend loved her – he would be a complete fool not to after three years of being with her; Bella was an amazing person.

She bit her lip once more and looked away to an insignificant point, looking like she was sorting through her thoughts before she spoke again. "It's not about whether we _need_ the break Edward. I don't want him to think that I don't love him and I feel like if I don't fight him on this, that's exactly what it'll look like."

Ahhh, the crux of the matter. Bella had talked her way through all her thoughts and finally we were at the exact reason she wanted to talk to me. She thought that walking away right now, even for a temporary period, was akin to giving up on their relationship. She was obviously an incredibly loyal person - stubborn too. She didn't want her boyfriend to ever think that she didn't love him because it was pretty obvious she did, otherwise this would have been a very easy decision to make. I had gone through the same thoughts with Claire. I didn't want her to question the time we'd spent together or the feelings that I'd expressed because I did love her – it just wasn't enough to get us through the time we had to be apart and she didn't love me enough to come with me. I approached her and gently squeezed her shoulder in what I hoped was a friendly gesture of comfort.

I gave Bella a similar piece of advice that Carlisle had given me when I left New York. "Admitting that you both time out doesn't mean that you don't care about each other or your relationship," I assured her. "It just means that you're both grown up enough and trust each other enough to give yourselves a bit of room to breathe and to grow. If you don't take a step back Bella, it sounds like it'll just go to hell that much quicker and in a much more painful way."

Bella nodded her agreement, telling me that she understood what I was trying to say and she accepted it, though it wouldn't make it any easier for her to do when the time actually came. I reached across to her other shoulder to bring her into my side, wishing that she wasn't going through this right now. It was going to be damn hard to play a girl completely head over heels in love with someone when you'd just broken up with someone you loved. Still, maybe she could channel some of her own experiences into Kristen's broken relationship with Robert. Her pain would be fresh and it would seem unbearable, but she could definitely put it to some good use. I could tell that Bella was struggling to hold back tears and I had to literally pull my head back to stop myself from dropping a kiss on the back of her bent head. If she had been Rosalie, I wouldn't have thought twice about the gesture, but Bella and I were not that physically close and it would seem incredibly weird for me to do that.

I hoped that Bella would follow her own thoughts and instincts on the situation, but I didn't honestly think it was likely. It was so hard to leave a relationship and by all accounts, this had been Bella's only relationship, making it that much harder to break away from. I wondered briefly whether her boyfriend had gone through the same kind of soul-searching before coming to the conclusion that he had given to her. From experience, I knew that he would have gone back and forth with the decision until he finally blurted out the first thing that came to his mind today. Again, I wondered whether I had anything to do with pushing him over the edge. Then I got a little pissed at myself for constantly thinking I was the centre of the fucking universe; if Rosalie could hear my thoughts right then, she would have cut me down several levels.

Bella gave me a gentle squeeze to tell me that I needed to let her go. Obviously, she was ready to face the music back at the apartment. I leaned away from her and looked down into her coffee brown eyes, trying to convey my support with my gaze. She gave me a small smile and finally stepped away from me, opening her mouth to no doubt suggest that we get the hell out of here.

The sound of my name, however, completely interrupted whatever it was that Bella had been about to say and as I turned around to face the slightly familiar voice, it was all I could do to stop my jaw from hitting the floor.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you for everyone who reviewed and do so regularly - I do respond anyway, but I thought I should do it again because I do like to read them because I know it's not just me who gets so invested in these characters I wonder what's going to happen. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and maybe it doesn't go in the direction you originally thought it would, but I think I'm pretty happy with it. For everyone that reads it, but doesn't review, thank you for reading anyway and I hope that you're still enjoying it. **


	14. Chapter 14 Say Goodbye and Say Hello

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves. **

**Chapter 14: BPOV**

The journey back to my apartment was on the hellish side of tortuous. I knew Jake would be aware that I had finished work almost two and a half hours ago and that I had chosen to keep away from the apartment on purpose. I wondered whether he would interpret that as my thinking he wasn't important enough to talk to; god I hoped not. He promised me that he would be there when I finished for the day, but that had been a while ago and there was a small possibility that he would have gotten fed up waiting to me – the story of our relationship right? Goodness, my life was full of parallels these days. I sighed, dropping my head back onto the window of the train. I still didn't really know what I was going to do when I talked to him. I knew what I _should_ do, what would be the best thing for both of us, but I didn't have a clue whether or not I would actually be able to do it. It was one thing to acknowledge that Jake and I needed some time apart, but it was quite another to actually live in that possibility.

For three years now, I hadn't been 'apart' from Jacob, not really. Sure, we were separated for projects sometimes, but we always talked on the phone and we visited each other as much as possible. When we were both home, we hung out with each other quite a bit and we had a _lot_ of mutual friends. What would happen to all of that now that we _'were on a break'_? I groaned; how very fucking 'Friends' of us. I shut off the questions in my mind by reminding myself that Jacob and I were _not_ breaking up for good – we were just taking a break, which may last less than the time it took for me to finish shooting this movie. It would be fine; I would do this film, free of any distractions apart from trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do about my mother, go home and sort out the mommy issues and I would get back together with Jacob. I breathed out – that was a plan, a good plan even and I had always believed in plans.

So why the hell did it feel like I was about to break up with my boyfriend of three years to never see him again? Why did it feel like I was letting go completely of this relationship? I groaned for the third time, probably eliciting looks of concern by the various people around me. Okay, maybe not exactly concern, this was New York after all, but definitely strange looks – and most likely looks of annoyance. I didn't care though. If you couldn't groan and make strange noises when your life was falling apart bit by bit when the hell can you?

In an attempt to take my mind off Jacob and what certainly felt like the impending doom of our relationship, I thought back to Edward and the girl that had interrupted our departure of that small space in the middle of Columbia, Zafrina. I wondered how he knew her. Like Rosalie, she was amazingly gorgeous, though in a completely different way. Whereas Rosalie was tall and statuesque, Zafrina was smaller, much more my height in fact. She was curvier than Rosalie, though her curves were definitely in all the right places. I was a completely straight woman, but even I had to admit that she was gorgeous. I began to wonder if Edward had any friends that weren't unnervingly good-looking. His brother was disturbingly handsome, his best friend was probably the personification of Aphrodite, Jasper was definitely capable of turning every head in a crowded room as he walked past and now this new girl was the embodiment of exotic beauty. I amused myself at the thought of all of them going out together because surely that group would have gotten some amazing reactions.

I guessed by Zafrina's comment about Edward leaving a country she was in, that they had met whilst he was in London, though that was a completely wild assumption on my part. After all, Edward had done a lot of travelling in the past and he could have met her anywhere along the way. I wondered what their relationship was because I certainly didn't miss the way in which Zafrina hungrily took in his appearance; nor did I miss the way she looked at me when she first saw us together – she was wondering whether I was the competition. I wanted to laugh at that thought because if _anyone_ was competition for Zafrina, surely it was Rosalie. So maybe she hadn't known Edward that long at all. On the whole though, she seemed perfectly nice, teasing Edward and making me feel at ease even though we didn't know each other; it seemed she had the social skills I was sorely lacking – well, it was good to know where they went, at least.

Edward had been stunned to see her there, that much was certain, but her reaction to her being there after the initial surprise didn't give anything about their relationship away. I wondered once more if Edward really was with Rosalie. I didn't know why the hell the mystery of their relationship wouldn't leave my mind, but it was definitely there to stay. I just didn't really understand how two incredibly attractive people spent so much time together, _lived_ together in fact, and not be in a relationship. Surely studies had been done to show that it wasn't possible. However, now that there was a new girl to add to the equation, one who didn't appear to know about Rosalie with the way she was eyeing me, I was once again thrown for a loop. Edward didn't strike me as the type of guy to have an open relationship and certainly, he didn't strike me as the type to be stupid enough to have it with someone he lived with. Did that then mean that Edward and Rosalie weren't together at all? Had they in fact broken up and remained friends?

I didn't think the latter scenario was likely because I couldn't imagine living with your ex at all. The kind of situations that would undoubtedly make room for wouldn't be out of place in a sitcom – or a nightmare. The thought about exes and breaking up made me think about Jacob again and suddenly the distraction of speculating about Edward's love life was no longer a distraction at all. Damn it!

*

Jacob was waiting in the lounge for me when I entered my apartment and quickly shut the TV off when he heard me close the door. The walk from my front door to the lounge area felt like I was walking the plank; my heart was pounding in my chest, my palms began to get sweaty and my throat was completely dry. The moment I had been dreading all day was finally here and I still had no idea what the hell I was going to say. I wanted to turn back around and run as far away from this place as I possibly could, but when Jacob looked up and saw me, I knew that this was the bridge that I had been avoiding for a hell of a lot longer than today; now I really had to cross it.

"Hey," he said simply, his mouth lifting in a smile that didn't reach his eyes at all. "You're back late."

I nodded, wondering whether I should sit down with him or remain standing. I remained standing. "I went for a walk," I told him, lying, but not really feeling too guilty for it. I don't think now would have been a good time to mention that I had gone to talk to Edward about our relationship; somehow I didn't think Jacob would take to that piece of news kindly at all.

He didn't say anything, merely looked up at me for such a long time that I had to sit down really. It was probably better that we were both at the same level for this conversation anyway; I didn't want anyone to have a psychological advantage or whatever. We must have just sat there, on opposite sides of the small coffee table that had been on the other side of the room last night, looking at each other for the longest time. I looked at his face, as if I was studying every part of it in case this was the last time I ever saw him. That wasn't actually what I was doing at all, but it would have probably read that way if this were a scene in a movie. Somehow thinking of this like a scene made me able to distance myself from the reality of the situation, for which I was grateful.

I heard the clock on the wall behind me tick down every second until finally Jacob opened his mouth. "Bella," he started, softly. "I...this morning..." he trailed off, not knowing what to say to make this any easier because there was nothing that could be said. This was an awful moment, for the both of us, and nothing that we did or didn't say and do would make it better.

"Jake," I tried, wanting to explain myself before things got out of control. I was now firmly going with the belief that even if I didn't know what to say the right words would find their way out of my mouth. That was how it worked right? "I understand." He looked at me puzzled for a moment. "I understand about this morning. I get where you were coming from and I don't blame you to be perfectly honest."

It was true; I didn't blame Jacob at all for the place we found ourselves in now. He looked like he wanted to say something, but I held up my hand to indicate that I wanted to finish what I was saying; I didn't want to lose momentum now that I had started.

"I do still love you Jake," I assured him. "I care so much about you and contrary to what it may have seemed like this past couple of months, I care about our relationship too; it's important to me." I took a deep breath. Now was the moment of truth. What the hell had I decided to do? The tension in the air around us and between us was so thick I wouldn't have been surprised if one of us passed out from not being able to breathe properly. The tension was like a separate entity, alive and twirling around us, making time pass incredibly slowly as I opened my mouth to say words that I knew would change both our lives in one way or another.

"But I agree with you." Holy shit! Did I really just say that? Oh my god! I was on the verge of hyperventilating. I agreed with him? Holy mother of god! I let my eyes rest on Jake's and found that he too had the same thoughts running through his mind. I don't think either of us had expected me to say that.

"You do?" he choked out into the silence that pressed in on us.

Did I? Could I take back the words? Before I could even think about what answer I was going to give him, I felt my head nod in confirmation. What the hell was happening? My body seemed to be completely out of control – probably because my mind was still busy reeling from the last thing.

"I want us to work," I told him, confusing both of us in the process. "In the long run, I want us to work so if we both need this time apart then I can cope with that." Okay, that sounded a hell of a lot better and more thought out than what I'd said before. I guess my mouth knew what it was doing after all.

"You want us to work?" Jacob asked, disbelief and hope warring in his eyes.

I nodded. "Of course," I stated, my voice more confident than it had been since I walked into the room. "I love you Jake. I know it may not have seemed like that lately, but I do and I don't want to give up, but this isn't giving up. This is taking time to re-evaluate our importance in each other's lives."

I couldn't believe that the words coming out of my mouth were really from me; who knew I was so eloquent? True, I had more or less paraphrased the words that Edward had used to assure me this wasn't giving up on my relationship, but it worked. I knew it worked when Jacob's eyes lit up for the first time since he arrived at my apartment. He smiled at me and I found myself smiling back even though this still hurt like a bitch. His smile said that we were going to be okay – that some day in the future, we would get back on the track we had originally been on.

Jacob left his seat and knelt in front of me, taking my face in both of his large, strong hands. I felt the tears that I had kept in check the entire time start to leak from my eyes and the pain in my chest, sharp before, had exploded across the entire space. I couldn't believe that after three years, this was how it was going to end. My mind shouted that this was not actually the end, but it sure felt that way. It sure felt like this was the final curtain call when Jacob brought his lips to mine and kissed me, gently at first, then becoming more urgent as the seconds ticked by and we were getting closer and closer to the reality that we had both now agreed to living. I felt a certain sense of desperation in the way I almost clawed at him, trying to get closer to him, trying to erase the distance that had grown between us and would seem to continue to grow now. Even though I knew this had been the right choice, the mature decision, I couldn't help but want to take it back. I tried to tell Jacob how sorry I was, how much I wished I hadn't created this gulf between us that could now only be repaired by both of us losing something we cherished.

I must have murmured the words _'I'm sorry'_ over and over again as we said our goodbyes to each other in the only way appropriate. Tears flooded down my cheeks and at some point, I no longer knew whether they were mine or Jacob's. He told me he loved me repeatedly while we made love and I told him the same thing, but it brought no comfort to either of us, only more pain. We did love each other, but apparently it just wasn't enough anymore; it wasn't enough.

*

Jacob was gone when I woke up the next morning, which I expected, but it didn't help the lurching of my stomach when I rolled over to find that instead of his large body there was only a note.

_Bella,_

_This still hurts like hell even though this goodbye is only temporary. I'm sorry I didn't have the guts to face you this morning, but I didn't think it would be good for either of us. I love you and if you need anything at all, I'm still here for you._

_Always,_

_Jacob_

Tears fell down my cheeks again, blurring the words that he had written. Like last night, this goodbye didn't feel temporary; it really felt final and even though I kept telling myself that he was just a phone call away when we finally had enough time apart, I couldn't prevent the sense of doom that washed over me. I really did feel like I had said goodbye to Jacob for the last time last night and my mind would not be convinced otherwise. I needed to talk to someone; I needed someone to tell me that I was being ridiculous and that I would be back with him before I could even begin to really miss him. I needed to talk to Edward.

I dried my eyes and looked for something to wear that covered my body enough so that I could go to his apartment and fall apart on him. It was early in the morning, I knew that, but I also knew that Edward wouldn't mind me turning up at his front door. I didn't know exactly when I had gotten so dependent on his advice and his friendship, but I was and there wasn't anything I could do about it now. After slipping on my slippers, I grabbed my keys and made my way up the stairs to Edward's, trying against all my might to stop more tears from falling because I didn't want him to get the fright of his life when he opened the door to me.

I rounded the corner and stopped dead in my tracks at the sight before me. I thought for a moment that I had come up the wrong set of stairs and to the wrong apartment, but when I got a better look at the girl slowly and quietly closing the green door of Edward's apartment, I knew that what I was seeing was real. Zafrina had apparently slept at Edward's last night, but from the look of her less than perfect hair and the way her clothes were rumpled, there wasn't a lot of sleeping done. I didn't know what to do – I didn't want her to see me like this, didn't want to speak to anyone in fact apart from Edward.

I felt ridiculously stupid and thoughtless for thinking that Edward had nothing better to do other than listen to me whine about my failed relationship and my problems. He had a life of his own and it looked like he was definitely living it. I shook my head clear and moved down the flight of stairs back to my own place before the beautiful girl that was sneaking out of my friend's apartment could see me. I was so distracted that I didn't see Alice until I had already knocked into her.

"Ow!"

"Shit!"

I had knocked Alice into the wall and she slammed her head back against it. I put my hand up to the wall to steady myself. "Damn, I'm sorry Alice."

She rubbed the back of her head and attempted to smile up at me, but she placed her hand over a particularly sore spot at the same time and it turned into more of a grimace. "It's fine Bella," she assured me. Her confused look was replaced with one of concern when she finally saw me properly.

I couldn't exactly blame her; I must have looked a complete state with the mismatched clothes I had haphazardly thrown on this morning in my haste to just talk to someone that understood me. My eyes were puffy and red from all the crying that I'd done last night and this morning. Alice took this all in and put a slim arm around my shoulders, giving me a gentle squeeze of support. She knew. She knew that Jacob and I had broken up; Jacob had probably spoken to her yesterday before I came back. I wondered vaguely why she didn't hate me. Alice and I may have been friends, but she had known Jacob far longer and I would venture to say they were far closer than we were. Didn't she blame me for the break-up? I certainly blamed myself. Then again, Jacob would never have placed the blame on me when he recounted the story to other people – he wasn't like that.

"Come on, let's get you inside," she instructed, keeping her arms around me, as if she was afraid I would fall over without her support. I thought that was a little overboard; I mean I knew I was in bad shape right now, but I surely looked like I could hold myself up.

I let her into my apartment and went to the kitchen to make coffee for the both of us, not particularly liking the feeling of pity that was coming in waves off of Alice. I was thankful that she was here and that she wanted to make sure that I was alright after Jacob had left, but really, I didn't want to talk to Alice about this. She wasn't exactly an objective party – she had been friends with Jacob for years and they were pretty close. However, I couldn't exactly throw her out of my apartment either and I didn't really want to; I did like Alice after all.

"I'm sorry about what happened with you and Jacob, Bella," she told me when I handed her a steaming mug of coffee and offered her milk and sugar to go with it.

I smiled tightly, not wanting to get into it. "It's fine Alice," I told her, my voice full of confidence I did not feel at all. "It's just a break. We'll be fine."

Alice nodded and started talking about something else entirely, no doubt trying to keep my mind off the fact that I was newly single. I had to keep repeating to myself that we were going to be fine even though I really didn't think we were going to be. What would happen if we grew further apart when we weren't together? What would happen if Jacob found out that his life was so much simpler without me in it? Where the hell would that leave us? I wanted to vent all of this because it was driving me insane, but the only person I would even think about saying any of this to was probably still in bed recovering from his night. Great, nice image there to think of. The musing about what Edward was up to last night did not leave the best taste in my mouth and I had to quickly drink my coffee to get rid of it.

I listened to Alice talk about the scenes that we would be going over today and wondering if we would have to delay filming until they decided what to do with the music. However, I wasn't really following the conversation at all. Instead, my mind kept obsessing at the possibility that I had made a very big mistake last night. I had let go of my relationship with Jacob without too much fight and somehow, although it seemed perfectly reasonable last night, it held a much more negative significance in the light of day. I didn't really know where my thoughts were trying to lead me and when Alice called my name for the third time, I made some lame excuse about needing to shower and get dressed. I needed time alone to just let my thoughts play havoc with my mind.

"Sure, no problem Bella," she called after me. "I'll stay and make you breakfast."

I resisted the urge to groan because I had hoped that Alice would leave once she knew that I was capable of doing normal things like getting myself washed and ready for the day. Surely her only concern should be whether I managed to get out of bed and put on a good enough front to allow me to function the rest of the day. Apparently Alice was also concerned with my nutritional status. I took my time in the shower, allowing the water to wash away the feelings of doubt and doom that were threatening to drive me insane. It was very metaphorical of me and I found myself actually chuckling at my own thoughts; it seemed as if it was a little too late to stop the insanity after all. When I stepped out of the shower, however, I did feel a hell of a lot better. Maybe that was just because I felt cleaner and more human after the relaxing time under a quite powerful spray, but I was in the mood to attach significance and meaning to everything right now, so I chose to equate it to the beginning of a new chapter of my life as I got dressed for the new day.

I could smell the breakfast that Alice had cooked for me and I had to admit that it did smell amazing; the growl of my stomach agreed with my head. She already had a plate of French toast and bacon laid out for me when I re-entered the kitchen. I instantly felt like a bitch for having wanted her out of here before. No wonder I didn't have many female friends if I shut them out and wanted them to stay away from me.

"Thanks Alice," I told her genuinely when I had swallowed the first bite of the delicious toast. "This is amazing."

She laughed. "It's the only thing I can actually cook," she admitted, laughing. "You look much better by the way."

I laughed easily at her honesty. "I feel a lot better."

Her laughter died and she looked at me in a very contemplative manner. I knew what was coming; Alice was going to offer me some words of wisdom about the whole Jake thing. I didn't think she was going to offer me advice, more like words of encouragement and understanding. However, I wasn't ready to hear anything of the sort and so I spoke before she had the chance to.

"What did you do last night Alice?" The tone in my voice didn't leave room to misunderstand exactly what my reason was for having this conversation and I saw Alice's shoulders drop, knowing that she wouldn't have chance to tell me anything because I wouldn't listen.

"Nothing much actually," she said. "I went to dinner with some people from the film and then I went to bed early. We have an early morning after all."

"With more to come, I'm sure," I supplied, glad that we were getting onto the subject of work now instead of my failed relationship. Alice nodded, but didn't say anything else. I knew what she was trying to do; she wanted to talk about what happened last night, but she didn't want to press me to do it. However, she was now also going to make it very hard for me to talk about anything else because she was going to keep giving me one word answers. Clever Alice, very, very clever.

"Who was at dinner last night then?" I asked. I wasn't going to lose this game; we were not going to talk about Jacob or my feelings about what was currently happening – or not happening – in my relationship.

Alice shrugged. "Just the usual suspects," she told me. "Jess, Mike, Tyler, Angela and Ben."

"Anything actually going on with Jess and Mike?" Alice looked at me with disbelief across her face. Even I couldn't believe the lengths I would go to in order to avoid the conversation that she wanted to have. I was _not_ interested in Jessica and Mike at all; they were doing the inevitable dance of co-stars having absolutely nothing better to do than screw each other in their down time.

Alice didn't even bother replying, merely sat there and watched me eat the food that she had made. Okay, maybe this was exactly the reason that I didn't like making small talk with people – I sucked at it. We sat in silence for a very long time and my mind was wandering dangerously close to thinking about Jacob and last night again. Well, one thing this whole Jacob this had successfully done was push all the thoughts about my mother to the back on my mind. I could only concentrate on one depressing development in my life at any one time – a coping mechanism in order to stop me from wanting to self-harm, I was sure.

"So, Jake told me that Edward slept here a couple of nights ago." She said it in a manner that indicated she wanted it to sound conversational. It didn't. Instead, it kind of sounded like she was making an accusation and the way she practically spat out Edward's name did not escape me.

I didn't answer her, but I did look at her, eyes narrowing, warning her that she should get the hell off this topic of conversation right now; I did not like the implication that was dripping from her. She met my eyes and there was a challenge in the air between us. I knew she was going to do it, but I absolutely did not want her to; our friendship would not be in a healthy place if she was going to actually utter the words. She looked at me for a very long time and then looked away and I felt a sense of victory was over me.

"Where were you coming from this morning Bella?"

I didn't even have to say anything; I knew that Alice had guessed the moment my mouth opened in shock at her words. I hadn't expected that question to come from her and I didn't have a quick reply.

"Son of a –"

Everything happened faster than I could comprehend. One minute Alice was sitting quite placidly before me, her expression curious, but certainly not menacing in anyway and the next, her eyes were blazing with anger and she was out of the door of my apartment faster than I could actually swallow the piece of toast I had put in my mouth. Where the hell had that girl gone? Surely it wasn't normal to be able to move that fast? By the time I had actually made it out of the door after her, there were some very loud and disturbing noises coming from the floor above me. Oh no. She couldn't have. I heard Edward's voice cursing and I answered my own question about how someone could move that fast.

**EPOV**

'_Had a __**lot**__ of fun last night, but had to run and catch my flight.'_

That was the note that greeted me good morning when I opened my eyes after throwing my blaring alarm to the floor. I smiled at the memory of last night and just how fun it had actually been. In fact, maybe the best part had actually been this morning, about five hours ago, actually. I looked at the note again, recognising that it had been written on the back of part of an old copy of the script. I shook my head as I screwed it up and dropped it in the trash can in the bathroom. I hadn't exactly been expecting to wake up alone this morning, but it certainly didn't surprise me that I had and I didn't exactly mind. Last night had indeed been a lot of fun, but that's all it had been to me and I was extremely glad that's all it had been to her too.

I wasn't usually the type of person for one night stands, but I was no fucking angel and if the situation presented itself to me, I would be a fool not to take it. The opportunity had more or less landed right at my feet yesterday and it had more than made up for the wasted one in London. I had been more than surprised when I saw Zafrina standing on the other side of the small, circular space that Bella and I had been occupying for the past thirty minutes. She was as beautiful as I remembered her being as she stood there, smiling widely at me, looking about as shocked at seeing me standing there as I was at seeing her.

"_What the hell are you doing here?" she asked, walking over towards me and Bella. "Are you actually stalking me?"_

_Bella laughed loudly behind me and Zafrina's eyes moved from me, to the laughing woman just over my shoulder and finally back to me again, curiosity plain in her features. She raised her eyebrows in question, but before I could say anything, Bella had already spoken. _

"_Why is it that everyone you meet thinks that about you?" she asked me, breathless with laughter; it was certainly a far cry from the sombre mood she had been in only minutes before._

_Zafrina's expression became a mixture of amusement, confusion and curiosity as I stood there, mouth opening and closing like a fucking goldfish because I didn't know what the hell to say to that. I turned to Bella to convey my displeasure at her words, but she was too busy chuckling away to properly look at me – or to care that I wasn't exactly pleased she'd said that in front of someone she didn't even know. Usually Bella was far more reticent when meeting new people – obviously that didn't apply when there was an opportunity to laugh at my expense._

"_Why is it that I'm constantly befriending insane, cruel women?" I asked both of them, wondering what the hell the answer was to that question myself. It was clear to me that I had maternal issues, but how those translated to the types of friendships I formed with members of the opposite sex, I didn't know._

"_Insane I have no problem with," Zafrina piped up. "Cruel isn't so flattering."_

"_But accurate," I told her, smirking. I looked back at Bella who had now stopped laughing and was looking more like her usual self around new people – uncomfortable and just wanting to get the fuck out of there. "Bella, this is Zafrina, a friend of mine in the loosest sense. Zaf, this is Isabella Swan."_

_Zafrina nodded, her eyes widening slightly at Bella's name and it wouldn't have surprised me at all if Zafrina had heard of Bella. What did surprise me was that she didn't automatically burst out laughing when she recognised the name because after all, she had laughed in my face when I told her what I did for a living. Obviously, by her completely calm reaction to Bella, that ridicule was reserved just for me. Seriously, what the hell was I doing wrong? _

"_Nice to meet you Isabella," Zafrina said, holding out her hand for Bella to take. I saw Bella pause for a moment before accepting it and I couldn't understand her hesitation; Zafrina had the sort of manner that put everyone at ease the moment she met them. She was friendly, open and completely approachable, even if she was gorgeous. _

"_It's Bella," Bella corrected, dropping Zafrina's hand. "Don't take this as a reflection of you being here, but I really should leave."_

_If I didn't know myself that Bella was in fact getting ready to leave when Zafrina arrived, I wouldn't exactly be convinced by her speech. It was unfair, but her unease definitely came off as her being purposely distant and I suddenly understood how she got the slight reputation she had for being a little aloof – to put it nicely. I had heard some people call her an outright bitch whilst waiting for the first audition that I had, but they had been so wrong about Bella it wasn't even funny. Still, I wouldn't have been surprised if Zaf got offended, but there wasn't a trace of disbelief in her face at all as she nodded to Bella's statement._

"_Don't worry about it," Zafrina said in a very off-hand manner. "I have this effect on everyone. Edward here left an entire country shortly after meeting me."_

_Bella and I both laughed at her self-deprecating humour and I was glad to see that Zafrina hadn't gotten the wrong impression of Bella. "It was very nice to meet you," Bella said sincerely and I knew that she too was glad Zafrina didn't take offence to her seemingly sudden departure. _

_She turned to me and smiled. "Thank you so much for this afternoon," she said, her voice dropping slightly, as if she didn't exactly want Zafrina to hear, which was a little hard considering that Zaf was about two feet from her. _

_I shook my head. "It was nothing," I told her honestly. I didn't feel like I had done anything other than be there to listen as she talked. I hadn't even given her the answers she was looking for, acting more like a sounding board than anything else. _

_Bella bit her lip thoughtfully and turned to go, but then stopped. Before I knew it, her arms had come around me and she was on her toes, whispering in my ear. "No, really, thank you." Well, that was one way to stop Zafrina from over-hearing anything she had to say._

_I couldn't say anything as Bella let go of me and finally walked away, leaving me completely astounded by the fact that she had chosen to hug me. Normally, I was the one who initiated contact with Bella, though the majority of the time it wasn't a conscious action, but rather a reflex. I shook my head of the fog that had descended down into it with that small action and turned back to Zafrina, who had looked like she had been studying me quite intently until I turned around to look at her. However, as soon as she realised I had turned around, her expression was completely neutral and she looked like she was just waiting for me to finish my conversation, politely staying out of the way in order for me to do so. I frowned a little at the change, wondering what it meant and then I frowned at the fact that I was once again reading far too much into a situation and really, I should stop before someone ran off with my balls for good._

"_She seems nice," Zafrina commented, nodding her head in the direction that Bella had gone in. "I take it she's the lead female in the movie you're shooting?"_

_I nodded, glad that she had the right impression of Bella; she _was_ nice. "What are you doing here Zaf?"_

_Zafrina rolled her eyes and started walking away from me, forcing me to follow behind her. "If you'd read any of the emails I sent you Edward, you'd know that I go to school here."_

"_You sent me one email," I argued, glad that I had checked my emails yesterday so that I could be certain of this. I hadn't actually read that one email yet, but I guess now that she was actually here, I wouldn't have to._

_She grinned at me. "Well, at least I know you read it."_

_I laughed at her antics. "Seriously though, classes don't start again till fall. What are you doing here two months early?"_

_She grimaced and I could tell I'd hit a sore point with her. "I don't want to go into the details because I'm very likely to kill someone, but it's safe to say that it definitely wasn't my idea to be here right now. In fact, I'm supposed to be on a plane to Bangkok."_

_I didn't pry any further into why exactly Zafrina was at her college campus much earlier than she should have been; I had a feeling that the girl could be more than scary when she was pushed and I didn't want to be the one to push her. We walked around the campus some more, her pointing out the buildings she had admired when she first visited the place and me pointing out the same things. I would have liked to think that _had_ I wanted to go to college, I would have been able to go to a place like Columbia. _

_Zafrina was just as fun as I remembered her being whilst we were in London and there was still that mutual attraction between us that bubbled just under the surface. I had been too busy with far more important things whilst we'd both been in the same city in England to explore the pull I felt towards this girl, but surely this was the second chance. We were sitting on the stairs of housing blocks that Zafrina desperately wanted to be allocated to, talking about the places that we had been and the places we would still like to go. I couldn't help but compare Zafrina to Claire, the last girl I had sat on these very steps with as we waited for her best friend. They couldn't have been more different, from their hair to their complexion to the way that they looked at life. Zafrina was all about the moment, living life for the enjoyment of it alone. Claire was all about planning and working to reach a goal in the future. I would venture to say that quite apart from her obvious beauty, a huge part of my attraction to Zafrina was the fact that she was so different from my ex-girlfriend. _

_I had been thinking a lot about Claire today; probably because Bella's situation with her boyfriend had triggered memories I hadn't really wanted to think about before. Even though I knew deep down that their relationship wasn't like ours and that they weren't necessarily going to break up, the way Bella had described her feelings to me mirrored my own all those months ago. I didn't want to think that my friend was potentially heading for the same kind of painful and yet depressingly dispassionate break-up that I had experienced; Bella didn't deserve that. The truth was actually, I had been thinking a lot about Claire ever since I set foot back in New York; I knew she still lived here with her best friend, Heidi, though I had heard that they were no longer in Manhattan. I knew all of this because Rosalie was still in contact with Claire._

_I found it odd that I was comparing Zafrina to Claire because after all, I wasn't considering starting a relationship with Zafrina. Sure, she seemed like an amazing person, but to be perfectly honest, the girl would wear me out; I didn't feel the slightest bit of shame in admitting to myself that the young woman sitting beside me right now could eat me for breakfast and still have room left. Still, nothing like a challenge to keep me on my toes right? I liked this girl and she obviously felt some kind of pull toward me too because her eyes kept sweeping over me and she was flirting quite shamelessly with me at times. I wondered what would she would have done if I hadn't been receptive to her obvious interest; Zafrina did not strike me as the sort of girl that got refused often, if ever._

"_When are you leaving?" I asked her after she told me what her plans had been for the summer before she was summoned back to the US._

_She shrugged and smirked at me, eyes locking onto mine and. "It depends," she replied._

_I regarded her curiously for a moment, sensing that I was missing something in her answer. "On..?"_

_Zafrina's unusually light brown eyes danced with mischief and suggestion. "It depends on what temptations the city has to offer me."_

_Now there was a challenge if ever I heard one. _

*

If I said I _rose_ to the challenge, I would officially be the biggest dick on the face of the planet and I didn't want to be that guy. However, I definitely took up the gauntlet that she had thrown down that afternoon and I had spent the night reaping the benefits. Last night had been...well, it had been an experience and even though she had left this morning, I considered it an achievement that I managed to stop her from going last night. She had mentioned that she was meeting some friends somewhere in Thailand and that they would be travelling Asia together before possibly going on to Australia if they had time. If I hadn't been working right now, I would have been sorely tempted to go with them. I had been to Australia before, but Asia was not a place I had explored extensively, much to my disappointment. However, I did have a job to do and right now, I was running a little late – the car would be here in ten minutes.

Just as I was about to step into the shower, there was a knock on my door. Shit. Obviously someone else was running early today.

"Just a minute," I called, picking up a towel and hurriedly wrapping it around my waist so that I wouldn't flash the poor man.

I opened the door to find the last person that I had ever expected to see knocking on my door at seven thirty in the morning. "Alice?" I asked, my voice a couple of octaves higher than normal due to the astonishment I felt. "What the hell are you doing here?"

She didn't answer me verbally, but instead drew her hand back and slapped me hard across the cheek. I felt it at the exact same time that I heard a crack sound through the small space between us. It was like the whole thing was in slow motion and I was standing somewhere above the scene watching it unfold. I saw her realise that I had opened the door after she knocked. I saw myself form the words that questioned her presence at my apartment. I saw as fury passed over her usually delicate features, turning them sharp and a little harsh. I saw as her hand pulled back past her shoulder and come into crashing contact with my right cheek. I saw my head recoil slightly at the sheer force of the contact and then suddenly, I was back in my own body experiencing the definite sting that her hand left.

"What the fuck?!" I exclaimed loudly, my own hand coming up to clutch at the spot she more than likely had left an imprint of her palm on. "Are you fucking insane? Jesus Christ!"

Before either she or I could say anything else, I spotted Bella come hurtling down the corridor, her face in a complete panic and her eyes darting between me and Alice. As soon as she put together what must have happened, she looked at me apologetically, her face a little anguished as she took in the hand-shaped red mark that Alice had left on my face. I was seething, but I was fucking confused too. I woke up thinking it was going to be a great day after a fucking fantastic night and then not even twenty minutes later some fucking psychotic bitch who seemed to hold some sort of grudge towards me just smacked me. Had I woken up to a different life?

"God Alice," Bella admonished. "What the hell did you do? Couldn't you at least wait for me to finish before going psycho?"

"I don't need to hear how this prick took advantage of you Bella," Alice spat, her cold hateful eyes glanced in my direction again and I swear I could see that a part of her wanted to give me a matching hand print on the other side of my face. It took me a while to figure out exactly what she'd said because I was wondering whether I should be protecting my other cheek or not.

"WHAT?!" I shouted, making Bella jump. I would have apologised, but the throbbing face made it a little hard to be polite.

"You're a fucking bastard," Alice answered me, cutting Bella off from whatever she had opened her mouth to say.

I didn't know whether to laugh or scream at this small, self-righteous bitch who had knocked on my door first thing in the morning to assault me and insult me for goodness knows what reason. I really didn't understand what the fuck Jasper saw in her and I would be having words with the man the first chance I got.

Alice took a deep breath and started to open her mouth, no doubt to launch into more name-calling because apparently we were now all in eighth grade. However, Bella finally got to speak first. "I'm so sorry about this Edward," she apologised in a rush, sensing that she wasn't going to get very far in her apology before she was interrupted.

She was right. "What the hell are you sorry about Bella?" Alice was almost screeching. "It wasn't you that broke up a three year relationship because you couldn't keep it in your fucking pants."

Suddenly it clicked and I couldn't help but let out a slightly hysterical laugh. Maybe it was the after-effects of the shock of being slapped by someone who barely reached my shoulder, I don't really know, but for some reason the whole thing was suddenly very funny to me. Here I was, standing at my door at seven thirty in the morning dressed in nothing by a white bath towel, practically getting my ass handed to me by a heinous bitch for something that I hadn't even done. My life was now a fucking soap opera; all I needed was for an evil twin of mine to have been the one having a good night last night. Hell, maybe it was because right now any kind of fun was a distant memory.

"Is that what you actually think of me?" Bella asked, her expression turning from stunned to downright angry. "I think you should get the fuck out of here Alice." The venom in her voice carried a much bigger blow than the one Alice had physically dealt me and I saw the annoying midget take a step back from the shock.

"Bella..." she tried, but Bella shook her head.

"No, I think you need to fucking leave before I take a leaf out of your book and start getting violent."

Alice looked at her, confused, hurt and with a touch of contrition, but then she turned back to me and left me a parting look of absolute hatred and disgust. Fantastic; I was making friends wherever I went. She turned on her heel and left hurriedly before anyone else could say anything to reveal a very stunned looking driver half way down, who may have been there for the entire thing.

"I take it you'll need a few minutes," he said once he'd picked his jaw up off the floor and put his eyes back in their sockets. I guess the driver's equivalent of locker room chatter will feature this morning quite prominently. He left quite quickly, though it looked as if he didn't really want to.

I watched him go and groaned, hitting my head on my door purposely, hoping that I had been sleeping this entire time and this was some sick dream I was having. How the hell had my extremely good morning gone downhill so damn quickly? Fuck!

"I'm so sorry Edward," Bella said again, her voice much quieter this time. I looked at her and saw that her eyes were pleading with me to understand that this was not her fault – I already did.

I stepped away from my doorway and allowed her into my apartment. It was completely pointless now, of course because our 'dirty laundry' had already been aired out for everyone to hear, whether or not they wanted to hear it. The funny thing was that we didn't even have any dirty laundry, well, at least none that we shared. Yeah, if funny meant fucking ridiculously annoying.

"At least I know why Alice doesn't like me now," I said drily. If I didn't attempt to find some sort of sick humour in the situation, I would end up shouting again – at the wrong person.

Bella attempted to grin in response to my attempt at lightening the situation, but it looked more like a painful grimace. "Do you think there's any chance that someone within this apartment building didn't hear that?"

I shrugged. "Sure. Mrs. Bell across the hall is deaf, so she probably didn't." I walked quickly into my room to put on some clothes, knowing I definitely wouldn't have time for a shower now. I would just have to turn up on the set smelling slightly of alcohol and sex. Hey, I was an actor right, that's what we did.

Bella groaned and flopped down on the chair in the lounge area. "I can't believe Jake told Alice that we'd broken up," she called.

"I can't believe that someone who is barely a hundred pounds can hit so damn hard."

"Fuck!" Bella swore again. "I'm so sorry. I guess Jacob wasn't as cool with catching you at my apartment yesterday morning as he led me to believe."

"What?" I asked, stepping out of my room with my shirt in my hand instead of over my head. "Are you telling me that he _did_ think that something happened between us?" I was standing over Bella, angry at both her ex-boyfriend and her friend.

Bella opened her eyes and looked at me. I saw her eyes bulge for a fraction of a second before she swallowed and then shook her head. I wondered what the hell was wrong with her until I realised that I wasn't fully clothed. Shit! Oh well, it wasn't like she hadn't seen me in much less about five minutes ago.

"I don't think he does no, but it certainly wasn't a coincidence that he mentioned the fact that you were there – and that you had been there all night – to Alice, who then of course dove off the deep end and well...you saw the rest."

I looked at her pointedly. "I didn't just see the rest Bella, I fucking felt it and now everyone will see it." It was a good job that we weren't filming today because make up would have quite a job covering up the angry red mark on my cheek. "I hate to say this Bella, but your boyfriend is a fucking asshole."

Bella glared at my statement, but I didn't care. If he had baited Alice purposely so that she would come over here and practically _brand_ me, he deserved the many names I had floating in my head right now. I started walking back to my room to get my keys and my wallet, so that we could leave and get to set at a fairly decent time.

"He's not exactly my boyfriend anymore," she admitted. I stopped half way to my room and turned, stunned at the news. Although I had been there when Bella came to the decision yesterday and I had heard her refer to their break-up, it didn't register at all. I didn't know whether I was more surprised or impressed that Bella had actually gone ahead with her plan of taking the time away from their relationship. I was going to say that I was sorry, but she began speaking again before I could even form the words.

"I hope Alice doesn't tell Sue about all this." Oh shit; I hadn't even thought of that. "Actually, I hope _Jake_ hasn't told Sue about all of this." Double shit. This morning had literally gone from being one of the best mornings I'd woken up to in a while to being the worst. Not only was I about to be sporting a bruise given to me by someone of diminutive stature, but now I was starting to fear for my damn job. My life was _worse_ than a soap opera.

*

Alice _hadn't_ told Sue about anything, but that didn't mean that there weren't questions as to why I had a hand-print on the side of my face. The guys joked that it was because I had slept with the wrong girl and I was sure with the way Alice was acting towards me, everyone was going to think it had been her. She hadn't been outwardly hostile, if you discounted the looks she sent me every time we were in the same room as each other, but nor had she apologised either. I wondered why on earth she was so close to Jake anyway that she would defend his honour in this way. Of course, it could have been that she was close to Bella, but I doubted that very much, especially with the way she had pretty much humiliated Bella this morning. When I wasn't pissed at Alice for hitting me without provocation, I was pissed at her on behalf of Bella. Obviously Alice didn't like me or know me, but she should have known her friend and she should have given her more credit than accept that she would cheat on her boyfriend. Bella definitely did not strike me as the sort of girl who played away from home and if Alice didn't know that, she obviously didn't know her very well at all.

Sue had asked about the red mark on my face only once, but I hadn't given her an answer, only preferring to say that it was personal. Bella had been present when Sue asked and her answering blush would have got me into even more shit should Sue have seen it. As it was, Sue was already half-way to the other side of the set as the words left my mouth; someone was busy then. Bella apologised once more, but I shook my head at her words; she was definitely not the one that needed to apologise to me. I wanted the words _'I'm _sorry' to come from one person only and I had a feeling I was going to grow two heads before she even thought about saying them to me. I was almost glad when Sue told me that I had to get my hair ready for the role that morning half-way through the morning rehearsals. I'd had enough of the underhanded jokes and whispered comments about the bitch-slap on my face to last a lifetime. At least now I would be alone to stew in my understandable anger about the whole situation.

I was sitting on a chair getting my hair fondled by some woman who was apparently amazed at the shade it was, wanting my thoughts to travel somewhere besides what had happened this morning; of course it landed on Zafrina. I didn't exactly know what was going to happen between the two of us now, but I had a feeling neither of us was looking for something permanent and lasting, at least not in each other. Zafrina hadn't made it too much of a secret that she wasn't exactly the type of girl who stuck around too long and I just needed something that would help me get over my previous failed relationship. I wasn't ready to start looking for someone I would consider a serious relationship with, but I had gotten very bored with the girls in LA, with their fake blonde hair, artificially whitened teeth, their fake tans and their fake breasts. I may not have been looking for the great love of my life, but I was sure as hell still looking for substance.

On that note my thoughts drifted, completely unbidden, to Bella. Alice, it appeared, saw that I was attracted to her friend she had jumped to the conclusion that I would be enough of a bastard to make a move on a girl who was so obviously taken. I didn't know where the hell Alice had gotten that impression of me from because I had never done anything of the sort. I knew Jasper wouldn't have told her, or even implied, that I routinely went around the city looking for teenage girls to sleep with, so it must have been something that I was giving off to that psycho. Even if Bella didn't have a boyfriend – which was the case right now – there was no way I would try and pursue her. For one, I didn't get the impression that she would be interested; her boyfriend and I looked _nothing_ alike. Also, the age difference was too great. Maybe it wouldn't have been had she at least been twenty and I had been twenty five, but at 18, she wasn't even old enough to drink. Did I seem pathetic enough to Alice that I couldn't find a girl my own age to sleep with? Well, I'd gotten that answer this morning hadn't I – the echo was probably still bouncing around along the hallways of the building.

The question that I absolutely did _not_ want to ask myself, of course was whether or not I would have pursued Bella had she been single and about two years older. I wanted to say a categorical no; that I wouldn't have been stupid enough to want to get involved with someone I was doing a movie with, but even my head wouldn't let me think the words. I was forced to deviate from my extremely dangerous train of thoughts by a sharp pull on my hair. Now, I was all for a bit of hair pulling in the right context, but this just damn hurt! I glared at the woman dabbing cold cream all over my hair, but she was concentrating far too much on making me look like I'd poured paste on my own head. What the hell was it with women inflicting physical pain on me today?

*

I didn't know that it could take two hours to dye and cut anyone's hair, let alone mine; it now made sense that Claire could take an entire afternoon off to get her 'hair done', though how she stood it was still beyond me. The only part of the entire process that I enjoyed was the gentle massage I received when my hair was getting washed. There was no way that I would be getting this done again in the near future – well, not by my own choice anyway. It was a completely different experience, having your hair cut at a barber's and having it cut at a hairdresser's – the price, I'm sure would have reflected that also.

I had already walked out of the shop and was on my way to a subway station, having refused the car, when my phone bleeped. I had text.

'_Want to meet for lunch?'_ The message was from Bella and I answered with an affirmative immediately, not relishing the thought of going back onto the set and hearing the same lame jokes I had this morning before I absolutely had to. We arranged to meet at a small diner close to where I was because Bella had been here earlier in the week and she knew places around here.

She was already sitting down at a booth in the back of the fine establishment that she had chosen, making herself visible with a wave of her hand when she spotted me. "Hey" she greeted as I sat down. She studied me for a moment and I was wondering what the hell had happened to the red welt on my face before I noticed that her eyes were a little further up than my cheek. She was looking at my new hair. "You look...your hair...well, it's just different."

I chuckled at her eloquence. "Thanks?" I wasn't entirely sure if she meant different to be a bad thing, or a good – judging from her tone, I was guessing she didn't either.

She blushed, something she had been doing more and more recently even though it had hardly happened when we first met. She shook her head. "I didn't mean it to sound like I was masking an insult then," she assured me. "It's just...well your hair before was so..."

"Strange?" I provided. I had come to terms with my hair colour long ago, but that didn't mean I didn't know exactly how _unusual_ a shade it was. Robert's light brown hair, by comparison was positively run of the mill. I had done a double take when I looked at myself in the mirror at the hairdresser's; it was quite miraculous really just how much a hairstyle could change someone's entire face.

"Distinctive," she corrected. "You don't see a lot of people walking around with bronze-coloured hair do you? Now, you look, well, kind of just like everyone else."

"You make that sound like it's a bad thing Bella," I laughed. "Surely in a business like ours, the ability to look just like everyone else is a plus. Maybe I should keep it."

She shook her head quickly at my suggestion. "Don't," she protested. I raised my eyebrow, questioning her refusal to let me change my hair colour on a permanent basis. "I like your hair."

It was a simple, innocent sentence uttered from one friend to another, but suddenly I knew that as soon as the filming for this part was over, I would be shaving my hair off and waiting for my natural hair to grow back. Bella looked a little surprised at what she'd said, but quickly hid the blush that was working its way up her face with a menu, telling me that she was hungry and that we should get some food quickly before we had to go back onto the set. I smiled as I studied my own menu, wondering whether Miss Isabella Swan wasn't just a little bit attracted to me too.

* * *

**A/N: Alice was just a little annoyed no? Over reaction methinks, but don't hate her. Everything happens for a reason right? For everyone who reads this, thank you. For everyone who reviews thank you lots.**


	15. Chapter 15 Love and Friendships

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 15: EPOV**

"So you were caught in the apartment of one girl, slept with another and then got bitch-slapped by a third?" Jasper was laughing so hard that I was surprised he managed to get a full sentence out of his mouth.

"You're an asshole, you know that?" I told him, pissed that everyone else seemed to find my life so damn amusing.

Jasper took a deep breath to calm himself down. "Come on Edward, you have to admit that it's just a little funny."

I didn't say anything; I didn't have to admit anything of the sort. Funnily enough, I didn't think it was that funny having a hand-shaped bruise on your cheek for having done nothing. Maybe I could have accepted it had I done something reproachable, but all I'd done was fall asleep; on the _floor_ of all places, not even her bed.

"Okay," Jasper started after a couple of minutes of silence from my end. "I see that Alice obviously slapped all the humour out of you." I clamped my mouth shut so that I wouldn't say something about his girlfriend that I would regret; Jasper did not take kindly to the women he was seeing being insulted. I had learned this the hard way when he had overheard me telling Rosalie that I thought his girlfriend at the time was a gold-digging hag. That was the night that both Jasper and I ended up in the ER; him with a broken nose and me with a possible concussion. Then again, he was on the other side of the country right now – there was no way that he could get violent over the phone.

"Why is it that you're attracted to all the crazy women Jasper?" I asked, not quite aiming for a low blow, but testing the waters.

"Don't start Edward," Jasper warned, his voice changing in an instant. "Besides, I wasn't the one who dated the girl who actually believed that we were separated conjoined twins."

"She was stupid, not crazy," I defended, once again hearing Jasper's low laughter over the phone line. "Why did you call anyway?" Surely it couldn't have just been to annoy the crap out of me.

He chuckled again before finally answering. "I just wanted to check in," he said. "With you, Rose and Alice gone, this place is kind of boring."

It was my turn to laugh now. "Maybe you should actually get yourself some friends Jazz," I teased. I could practically see the scowl forming on his face. "Man, you're in LA and you own a freaking bar; it's not like you're sitting in bed at nine o'clock every night playing solitaire."

Jasper had always been exactly the same, ever since I met him; he didn't function too well on his own. I think part of the reason he decided to buy a bar and run it himself was so that he would always be around people. He had been an only child and obviously now that he was an adult, he was making up for that. What I didn't exactly understand was that Jasper had so many friends and acquaintances that he definitely didn't need any of us back in LA to amuse himself.

"Well, it's actually checkers, which makes it even more pathetic, but you know," he joked, but there was something in his voice that didn't quite fit with his light-hearted comment. "When is Rose coming back?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly because even Rosalie didn't know when she would be back on this side of the Atlantic. I wanted to ask Jasper what this call was actually about, but I knew he wouldn't divulge anything unless he needed to; and he didn't need to. Jasper, for all his seeking of company, was in _intensely_ private person. I had very few details about his life before he came to LA and bought the bar. He had been very open with both Rose and I about the bar, but if we even so much as mentioned anything else pertaining to his life before LA, he would either change the subject or give a very vague answer.

"What is she doing in London anyway?" he asked. "She hasn't been back in years, I thought."

"I think that's probably the exact reason," I lied. It was kind of annoying having friends that either obviously had secrets from everyone, or had one secret that only you knew. I had my own damn secrets to worry about without trying to keep track of everyone else's.

"I never got the feeling that she missed it." Jasper was always too damn observant for his own good. I had asked Rosalie if she ever intended to tell him about her past, but she had categorically said that she didn't intend on telling _anyone_ else about what happened. I don't think that it was because she didn't trust Jasper, because even though we'd only known each other a few months, she did; it was just that he didn't need to know. She had only told me because she had no one else to turn to, no one else who would believe her. Now, she did and she was putting the whole mess behind her anyway, there was no sense in telling anyone else. Well, until she got into a serious relationship.

I shrugged, though obviously Jasper couldn't see that. "I don't exactly know what the hell goes on in Rose's head," I told him, honestly,

He chuckled. "I would fear for your sanity if you did." There was a slight pause on the line. I didn't know what else to say because there definitely was something that he wasn't telling me.

"What's going on Jasper?" I asked finally, knowing that Jasper appreciated direct questions instead of round-about guessing; probably had something to do with his southern upbringing.

"Nothing I'm willing to discuss Edward," he told me honestly. Well, at least I knew that there was something more to his phone call than just being bored in LA 'by himself'.

"Then why did you call?" I persisted – surely he didn't just call for a chat; that wasn't at all like Jasper. If he really did have a problem that he couldn't discuss over the phone then he would have shown up on my doorstep with several bottles of alcohol in his hands – he had done it before, after all.

"To talk to a friend," he answered shortly. There was another pause whilst I worked out what was the best way to handle this conversation now. I didn't know whether Jasper was really pissed that I had asked him what the hell was going on or whether he was just contemplating something. "I'm coming to New York."

Well, that was one question answered.

*

The first thought that entered my mind when I opened my eyes was _'Where the hell am I?'_The ceiling above my head looked very familiar, but I was definitely not in my own bed – my extremely sore muscles would attest to that. I turned my head to the left and saw a very familiar cream sofa and an even more familiar hand dangling over the edge of it. For the second time this week, I had apparently fallen asleep on the living room floor of Bella's apartment. From the light filtering through the room, it seemed quite early and I wondered whether I should leave before someone once again walked in unexpectedly. The whole mess with Bella, Alice and I had only just been sorted out last night; I don't think any of us wanted it to explode again. I slowly got up and then looked down at the sleeping figure on the couch, wondering whether I should move Bella onto the bed in her room. I looked at the clock on the wall of the lounge area; it was six o'clock, Bella would be waking up within the next hour with the same aches that I was currently experiencing, but I wanted her to wake up in the comfort of her own bed. Bella had definitely had a very emotional day yesterday and last night hadn't really gotten any better for her.

I decided to pick her up and carry her into her room, hoping that she wasn't a light sleeper. I didn't need to worry; Bella would probably have stayed asleep even if I dropped her whilst I was carrying her. She looked so peaceful and untroubled when she was asleep, quite unlike her usual awake demeanour. For someone so young, with the industry at her feet almost, Bella seemed incredibly burdened by something. I guess over the past couple of days it had been because of what was happening between her and her boyfriend. However, she had indicated that her problems with Jacob had only been the tip of the iceberg and I had to wonder what this seemingly successful and very put-together, mature teenager had to weigh her down when she should be flying. I knew though, from first-hand experience, that appearances were not what they seemed and I guessed that Bella wasn't just hiding one thing, but several things.

I set her down on her bed slowly, making sure that she wasn't sleeping on her arm or anything like that because that would have probably been more uncomfortable than staying on the couch. I resisted the urge to brush the stray strands of hair that had fallen across her face away, knowing that it was pushing the limits of our friendly relationship. I had to admit to myself that Bella did represent a temptation that I had completely overlooked the first time I had met her. Rosalie had immediately known that this girl would cause problems for me, but I had ignored her and refuted her claims. If Rose only knew what kind of shit I'd gotten into since this admittedly astonishing teenager had entered my life. Well, if Rosalie did know, her smug attitude would become incredibly hard to live with – or should I say _harder_ to live with?

As if she could tell that I had been thinking less than shining thoughts about her, my phone started to vibrate with Rosalie's name flashing up at me from the screen. This had been the first time in a couple of days that she had called me and suddenly I was nervous for her. I walked out of Bella's room quickly before I pressed the green button to answer the call and then headed straight for the door.

"Rose?" I whispered, opening the door and closing it as quietly as I possibly could.

"Edward?" Rosalie was not whispering.

"Yeah, I'm here." My voice was now back to its normal volume.

"Why were you whispering?" How observant she was when I didn't want her to be; just typical of Rosalie really.

I cleared my throat, thankful that I was going to be lying over the phone instead of to her face. "You woke me up," I told her. "I was still half asleep."

She paused, probably trying to work out what time it was here. "Oh sorry," she said finally and it was all I could do to stop myself from breathing out a relieved sigh – she would definitely pick up on that. I stopped in front of my door, not wanting her to hear me open and close it because then my lie would definitely be exposed.

"What's up Rose?" Even I could hear the slight panic in my voice and I could just imagine Rosalie rolling her eyes at me.

"Nothing, I just wanted to talk to my best friend," she said, her voice far too innocent for her to be telling the honest truth.

"And I've become the 45th American president," I said, sarcasm dripping from my words. "Seriously, what's with the early morning phone call?"

"It's not early for me," Rosalie replied, still evading my question. I was losing my patience with this phone call because what I really wanted to do was go back to bed for an hour or so before I had to get up for work. Obviously it wasn't urgent, otherwise she wouldn't bother teasing me and would have just blurted it out as soon as I answered.

I sighed heavily, using the opportunity to open the door to my apartment. "Well, it's been nice talking to you Rose," I said, stepping across the threshold and very quietly shutting the door to so that it wouldn't bang. I yawned loudly into the phone, only exaggerating it a little bit so that Rosalie would get the message and either get off the phone or tell me whatever the hell it was she wanted to tell me.

"Edward wait," she called as I entered my bedroom and sat down on my bed. I complied with her request and waited for her to carry on speaking, to finally get to the point of this conversation that was keeping me from getting some much needed sleep. She took only a few more moments before speaking again. "I'm coming back early. Tomorrow in fact, but I...well, I didn't really want to go back to an empty apartment and –"

I understood immediately why Rosalie had been hesitant to say what it was she was calling about; she was admitting that she missed me and she needed to be around people rather than being by herself. Rosalie Hale was revealing what she thought was a chink in her armour. I suddenly felt like a prick for rushing this out of her when she was obviously finding it hard. I hastened to blame it on my lack of sleep and hoped that Rose wasn't too pissed off.

"Just tell me what time you're landing in New York and I'll pick you up from the airport. You can stay at my apartment," I offered, thinking about the logistics of actually having her here. I would probably have to sleep on the couch, but it was a pull-out one anyway and it looked comfortable enough. Having Rosalie here would certainly mean that I didn't sleep at Bella's anymore, which would probably help me in the long run. Yes, it was perfectly okay to have her staying with me for however long she needed to be in New York.

I could hear Rosalie's smile in the tone of her voice. "Carlisle's picking us up from the airport because you'll be working when we land this afternoon." When she said she was coming back early, I had no idea that meant she was more or less coming back now. "And as for staying with you, thanks. I'm only going to be around for a week or so. I won't get in the way."

"Rosalie you're never in the way," I told her firmly, angry at myself for having lost my patience with her earlier; that was probably where she was getting this shit from. "You can stay for as long as you want to. I kind of miss having someone wake me up at the break of dawn by walking into my room uninvited."

She laughed on the other end of the line and it was the first time in a while that her laugh hadn't sounded the least bit forced. I smiled at the thought; the time in London really had helped her then. "I'm only going to be staying a week and then I'm going back to LA to help Jasper out with some things because he wants to come to New York for the new girlfriend."

"Jasper's landing tomorrow afternoon," I corrected her, surprised at the last piece of information she had given me.

"Since when?" I could tell that Rosalie was also quite shocked at the very different times we had for Jasper's arrival in New York.

"He called me yesterday and said that he was coming as soon as he could arrange cover for the bar and then I got a text message from him midnight last night telling me that he was landing Saturday afternoon."

"Hmmm, well I guess he changed his mind since I last talked to him," Rosalie commented, brushing it off quite lightly. I, on the other hand, was far more curious about the abrupt change in Jasper's plans. No matter what he may have said, there was no way in hell that she was bored enough to take a flight out here two weeks before he was originally intending to. "Maybe he just can't wait to see the new girlfriend."

I groaned at the mention of Alice, which Rosalie immediately picked up on and asked me about; I had yet to tell her about the drama that had unfolded over the past couple of days because I got a feeling that I would never hear the end of it otherwise. I knew that I would have to tell her the whole story when she came and saw the still-present hand print on my face, but I was hoping that if I put it off for as long as possible, I could come up with another story that was vaguely plausible.

Rosalie and I said our goodbyes not long after because she still had to do some packing. I, on the other hand, had spent far too much time on the phone and now could no longer grab a few minutes sleep before going in for work. Instead, I chose to spend my time in the shower, hoping that the powerful stream of water would work out the knots and kinks in my neck and shoulders, which had been acquired from a night on a the floor. I was on the other side of tired right now, having only had about twelve hours in the past three nights. I knew that running lines last night would be beneficial in the long run, but right now I was finding it hard to remember why Bella and I had decided to keep going at it until so late into the night.

*

Today was going to be a very long day. It was the start of some real rehearsal time on set for Bella and I; it had been the first time all week that we would be running through scenes together because we had both been busy doing other things. Last night we had concentrated a lot on going through the scenes that had been changed because the writers were going to be watching us this morning to see if the changes were working the way they wanted them to and we were to meet with them after rehearsals this afternoon to discuss any changes made. Two of the three scenes that they wanted to see this morning were solely Bella and I, which meant that if anything about them was wrong there was no one else to blame. I wasn't too worried about the scenes because if Bella was going to be acting with me, I was pretty sure that I would find it within myself to raise my game a couple of notches just so I wouldn't look like a complete tool standing next to her.

We were both rather quiet on the way to the set, but probably for different reasons; Bella looked rather deep in thought as she stared out of the window, whereas I was just too tired to try and make conversation. My biggest fear right now was me falling asleep in the middle of the scene, especially in the one where we were laid in bed together after the first time Rob and Kristen have sex – or _'make love'_ as the writers had referred to it. I could just picture myself zonking out whilst Bella was still speaking and then snoring right when I should have been saying my own lines. I really hoped that didn't happen, but even as I was sitting, rather uncomfortably, in the back of the car, I could feel my eyelids droop and my head drop suddenly to one side, as if I could no longer hold it up; I should have had more coffee this morning.

I don't exactly know how or when it happened, but somewhere along the way, I must have actually fallen asleep because one minute I was resting my head on the window and the next Bella was shaking me awake gently and calling my name. I woke up to her smiling face, confused for a second about what Bella was doing in my room. It took a few moments for me to orientate myself again and remember that I was actually in a car, not in my bed.

"Thanks," I said as we both climbed out of the car. "That was certainly a better way to wake up than being woken by Rosalie."

Bella looked at me, a question behind her brown eyes. "Why?" It was certainly a question, but I got a feeling that wasn't exactly what she was going to ask.

"There was no violence or cold water involved for one," I told her. She laughed, probably thinking that I was joking or exaggerating – not so. Rose had once dumped ice cold water over me to get me to wake up. We were running late for a flight and I would have understood the tactic – had it not been the first one she used; the woman hadn't even tried just saying my name to wake me up. She claimed that she just wanted to make sure I woke up quickly, but I maintain that she is slightly sick and enjoys torturing me.

There were very few people on set when we arrived – well, very few cast members anyway; in fact there were only the other members of the cast that would be sharing one of the three new scenes with us. Unfortunately, one of those cast members was Alice – great. I spotted her as soon as I stepped onto the set and I made sure that Bella was at least three steps in front of me by the time she caught my eye. There was no open look of hostility held there anymore, but she wasn't exactly welcoming me with a brilliant smile either. I guess that the best either of us could hope for would be an uncomfortable truce, though I would have been more than happy to be her friend had she not slapped me based on rumour and assumptions.

Sue was one corner of the room talking to three people, only one of which I had seen before – the writers. I had a sense of admiration for the group of people that had attempted to take this absolutely fantastic piece of modern literature and produced what was a pretty good representation of it. It would _never_ be as good as if they had stuck _exactly_ to the story told in the poem, but it would reach a wider audience this way and after all, the ultimate aim of movie studios was to get as many butts on cinema seats as possible. There were certain things that I, as an admirer of the original piece, didn't particularly love, but one or two of those things may be subject to change anyway. I wondered what Esme would think of the finished product; I knew that she'd seen the drafts of the scripts because she had approval, but she confessed that she'd actually given them a lot of room to work because she only knew what Kristen related to her of their most private moments. It was kind of a shame that neither Kristen or Rob survived to see their movie made; but then again maybe the movie would never have been made had either of them still been alive.

Bella and I consciously did not stand together and talk by ourselves, which would have been something we wouldn't even have thought about prior to the Alice debacle. Instead, she carried on walking to where Alice was standing with Jessica and I meandered my way over to where Tyler was talking to some of the crew members. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous that Bella and I were now being careful about how much time we were seen spending together. Firstly, the only person that was actually interested was Alice and it was really none of her business anyway. Secondly there was absolutely _nothing_ going on between us beyond friendship; I don't think I'd ever been forced to hide a friendship from someone I didn't even really know before, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

Ten minutes after Bella and I arrived, Sue was calling everyone together to get ready for the scenes that we were going to be running through today. She didn't give any motivational speeches; just told us to pretend like this was the real thing because the writers really needed to see if these scenes would work; the 'entire movie could be riding on it'. That was us told then.

*

_Being back home always gave Rob a special kind of buzz on stage that just couldn't be replicated in any other city no matter what kind of substances were in his system. Tonight though, even he would admit that the band was on a completely different level. Absolutely nothing had gone wrong and every song they did, whether old or new, sounded better than it did on the record. There were very few times in one's musical career where you could claim to have played the perfect gig, but this one had been it. It was kind of fitting really that the gig had been played to a very small crowd of possibly their most loyal fans, certainly their oldest ones anyway. One of the most surprising things about tonight was the song that he selected to cover; at all the small gigs, each member of the band would pick a particular song to do in their own special way. Robert had first of all picked __**'Back in Black'**__ by ACDC, but just as they finished one of their older songs, he changed his mind and when he began to play the opening notes of __**'You're Sixteen (You're Beautiful and You're Mine)'**__ by Ringo Starr, he had nearly been as surprised as Ashley and Dan. Robert had never been a huge fan of Ringo Starr, The Beatles certainly, but not the drummer individually. However, once everyone had recovered from the shock of the surprise song, they played it in such a way that unless you recognised the lyrics, you would never have known it was the same song. _

_Robert poured himself a glass of whisky. He knew, of course, exactly what had inspired him to sing a song that he wasn't particularly fond of – he had been thinking about her. In all honesty there were now very few times when he could say he _wasn't_ thinking about her, but usually it didn't manifest itself in such an obvious way. Normally, he would just zone out of a conversation or have images of her flashing across his mind in his sleep. He shouldn't have kissed her on his last night in Paris because now he couldn't get the feel of her out of his mind; it was driving him a little bit mad. Maybe not just a little bit because when he had been on stage that night, he had seen a flash of green that he had last seen shining with some unspoken emotion from beneath him. He had been tempted to extend their time in Paris just so that he would get to see more of her, but he had never been one to shirk his commitments and too many people were counting on his presence in London._

_Robert made his way over to the piano in the corner of the room and sat down on the bench, intending to just let his mind play away all the emotions of the night – from elation to confusion, to near desperation. He had never felt this kind of longing for someone else before; it almost seemed as if his desire for her could become a physical entity it was so bad. Robert was a musician and had enjoyed the benefits of being so, in more ways than one, but this was something so much more, so different, he could sense it. He had felt his entire world shift when he first saw her and now he couldn't shift it back – then again maybe he just didn't want to try hard enough. The notes he played drifted from their pensive, slow melody to some dramatic crescendo that engulfed his mind and the room at large. He had been so caught up in the building drama of the music at his fingertips that he almost missed the soft knock at the door of his small, modest home. He stopped playing and strained his ears – he heard it again._

_Robert sighed, wondering who the hell it could possibly be at four in the morning – both Ashley and Dan would have been at home already, either asleep or doing something that he definitely didn't want to imagine them doing. It couldn't have been a fan – very few people knew that he mostly stayed in his childhood home when he was in London and the majority of his fans were much more respectful than that anyway. He opened the door and his breathing stopped whilst his heart tried to make up for it by pumping about three times its normal rate. At his doorstep, looking up at him with a look of uncertainty and disbelief that he was sure was mirrored in his own face, was the girl that had stalked him since he had come back from France. She looked better than his mind could ever have imagined and he had to blink a few times to make sure that she was actually standing there, smiling her enchanting smile at him. Her hair shone in the moonlight, strands whirling about her in the gentle breeze of the summer night. He had to be dreaming; she couldn't possibly be here in the flesh – he must have fallen asleep and dreamed this scenario._

"_Robert," she spoke. Her whispered words sounded loud in the stillness of the night and finally, he realised that she was real – his mind could never replicate the sound of her voice so accurately._

"_Oh my god, Kris," Rob breathed out finally, the sound of her name muffled in her own hair as he rushed up to her and wrapped his arms around her. He was surrounded in her and he couldn't have been happier; if this was indeed a dream, it had been the best dream by far and he didn't want to wake up from it any time soon. Her scent enveloped him and soothed the ache within him that had been building since he walked out of the building in France a week ago. _

_She giggled into his neck, a little giddy at the fact that he was hugging her and wrapping her in his arms like she had been dreaming about for a week now, ever since they said their goodbye in the small bar in Paris. She was now supposed to be in New York, getting back to her reality, but instead of boarding the plane to JFK, she had bought tickets to Heathrow at the last minute and spent the time waiting trying to find out where the hell she could find him. She had been a little hesitant to come here and take this chance, not knowing how she would be received, but she felt as if she _had_ to come and see him; he needed her and she sure as hell hadn't felt this kind of pull towards anyone else. She yearned for him when he wasn't around and when he pulled away after several long moments, she felt as if her heart was being dragged out of her chest – surely this wasn't normal, wasn't healthy. As she looked up at his beaming smile and shining blue eyes, she found that she didn't care; she would never care._

"_I can't believe you're here," he said, looking at her like he wasn't sure she would be there when he blinked. She grinned at that thought – it was exactly how she had felt when she first saw him; like she'd imagined the most attractive man in the entire world and her power of thought had conjured him into the room._

"_I had to come," she told him honestly. She didn't know why, but she felt as if he would understand what she meant; that she didn't really have a choice but to board a plane to London even though she should have been on the other side of the ocean by now – at home._

_His smile got impossibly wider and there was a peaceful look that settled on his face. "I'm glad," he said and then he bent his head and kissed the top of hers in a gesture that was so familiar and so caring that she never wanted this moment to end. It didn't matter that they were standing on his doorstep at four thirty in the morning – this moment was just...it was perfect. Neither of them had ever felt so content and so at peace with the rest of the world as they did right now._

_They stood together, arms around each other, but leaning back so that they could marvel at the sight of each other as well as the feel, for a good few minutes until some drunk walked past and yelled for them to get a room. Instead of spoiling the mood that had descended upon them, it merely caused the two to laugh and step inside the house, filling it with the sound of their happiness whereas minutes before it had been echoing in the sound of Robert's desperation for her._

_They made their way into the living room where his piano sat, now forgotten, and folded themselves together into the old comfortable sofa on the other side. They were sitting close together, neither of them wanting to stop touching the other, just in case this moment was actually some strange hallucination. _

"_You were brilliant tonight," Kristen finally said, her finger tracing the line of his jaw, ghosting over his lips as she remembered the way he sang to her. She had felt it; the way the song was about her and she knew then that she had made absolutely the right decision to come here. Her parents would go bat shit crazy – she had already been in Europe for a week and a half longer than they had planned on her being – but she didn't want to think about that reality when this dream was so much better. _

"_It was because I saw you," he confessed because he knew now that it _had_ been her – the flash of green that he thought that been conjured by his over-active and slightly desperate imagination, had been her all along. "I felt you."_

_She pressed her lips to his at his soft admission, knowing that she wasn't the only one feeling this all-consuming _something_ between them. The kiss was brief, soft and completely innocent, but it was enough; enough for both of them to know that there was no running from this, no ignoring it. That briefest brush of their lips had them feeling a depth of emotion that nearly overwhelmed them. It wasn't the electric current that had been described by her friends and the books that she had read. It wasn't a fire or heat that started from their mouths and spread to the rest of their body; it was just an indefinable feeling of satisfaction from the very depths of their souls. It wasn't a feeling of coming home, but more a feeling of finally being found when you didn't even realise that you had been lost._

_They pulled part slightly so that their lips were no longer touching, but their breaths still mingled in the small space between them. Kristen smiled at the thought that she was literally breathing the same air that had just come from his mouth – it made her feel silly and giddy and just...right. Robert mimicked the upward tugging of her lips, unable to stop himself because right now everything in the world was fantastic and right and good. It was such a contrast to how he had felt when he boarded the plane back to his home country, thinking he had left the fantasy of her behind forever._

"_I heard you playing before," she said into the silence after a few more moments of just being in the moment with him. _

"_Yeah," he replied, knowing what she was asking without her having to voice the question. "I was playing for you, about you, to you." He kissed her lips softly once more, once, twice and then he kissed the tip of her nose, grinning the whole time. He hadn't consciously known, of course, that he was playing about her and to her, but when he said it, he knew that it was nothing but the truth. It amazed them both, this connection that they shared; it was exhilarating and terrifying because it took over so much of them to feel it, to be able to cope with it. _

"_It was..." Kristen paused, unsure if she could accurately convey to him how the music made her feel even though she had only heard a few moments of it through a wooden door. Somehow, it was better than knowing that he had sung for her on stage when he didn't even really know she was there; somehow this was more real. "It was everything."_

_He smiled at her slightly, his lips brushing against her eyelids. "I know," he whispered. "It was, it is, you are."_

_She couldn't stop herself then from tilting her head up and meeting his lips for a much more intense kiss, less innocent, but just as reverent. She felt as if every part of her had been found in this man; parts she had never known existed, parts she had never missed. He had become something so acutely important to her in the two weeks that she had known him that she barely remembered there was a world for her without him in it. For his part, Robert couldn't believe that this girl before him actually existed. He had written songs about love, about seeing a girl from across a room and knowing she was the one that would set your soul alight, but never had he felt the words he was saying before now, before this moment, with Kristen in his arms, her tongue exploring every part of his mouth she could reach. She consumed him and he her – it was extreme and passionate and slightly insane, but they wouldn't have had it any other way now that they knew that something like this existed. _

_They tried to break apart several times, only to come crashing back together again and again as if they just couldn't manage the distance. Finally, after perhaps the twentieth attempt, the finally got their heads far enough away from each other to part, at least enough to start laughing. Their laughter filled the silence of the early morning, breaking the silence with their slightly hysterical amusement. They didn't know what they were laughing about – perhaps nothing at all – all they knew was that they felt so _light_, so carefree, as if they could both just get up now and start walking on thin air._

"_I love you," he said when he could stop laughing long enough to be able to say the words. The words, perhaps the most powerful in the English language, were not quite powerful enough. It didn't convey the way she had literally taken over his entire being, the way she had filled every crack and every hole within him – some he knew were there, some he had no idea. _

_The words didn't surprise her, but they did they take her breath away – she had been expecting them since she first saw him. She knew, from that first moment that her entire life had been leading to the time when she would hear those words from his mouth. They rang with absolute certainty and sincerity. "I love you too," she said simply, knowing that he would hear and understand everything she had no words to express._

_They didn't seal their declarations with a kiss, but instead he ran his fingers across her face, touching every part of her skin lightly, as if he was a blind man trying to see her. She held his gaze and the hand that he wasn't using to play against her skin, just enjoying this moment with him, of being here and being in love with a man that loved her back. In the back of their minds both could feel the threat of black clouds on their blissfully clear horizon because something like this; something this pure and this astoundingly potent could not come without a price. If the world worked on a balance principle, like they both believed, their perfect contentment and the simple joy they found in each other could not last forever. Right now though, it didn't matter if the world around them crashed and burned – they would both go out of the world knowing that they had found the true meaning of their lives; of their entire existence. _

_*_

The scene went into a montage about how the two lovers spend the rest of their time together until the very last day of Kristen's stay in London where it slowed and was once again showing real time. However, today for Bella and I, there was nothing beyond the simple enjoyment of each other's presence; the writers didn't need to see the goodbye scene – not today anyway. When Sue called cut, it was quite hard to automatically back away from the role of Robert and become Edward again. The feelings described on paper were so strong that I had to physically shake myself out of his head space. Reading the words and acting the scene out were two completely different experiences for me; today was actually different from the reading last night even. In the set, surrounded by the things that were described on the pages he had to learn, he actually felt like he was Robert; like he was looking at a girl that wasn't just his leading lady, but the very centre of his world. Bella ceased to be herself the moment he had opened the door to her. She showed him the vulnerability he imagined that a 16-year old Kristen would have had, not matter how sure she was in what she felt for Robert. Bella had shown him only glimpses of her own youth and inexperience, but in the scene, in the moment, she gave him everything and for an actor, that was thrilling.

"You guys were absolutely amazing," Sue praised as she walked over to them, the writers in tow. "I don't know how it happens, but every time I see you two together, it just gets better."

Edward felt the heat in his cheeks – he had never really learned to take compliments well, especially when they were about his craft. He still felt like a fish out of water on the set when he wasn't in character; like they would find out he was just a normal guy with a passable talent and kick him out. Bella caught his eye and rolled her eyes at him, smiling, correctly interpreting his look as one of humble disbelief; she had expressed several times that she thought I was ridiculous for not understanding my own talent, not appreciating it. It was nice that she believed in me that much, but I still didn't believe her.

"That was fantastic guys," Arielle, the head writer, enthused right along with Sue. "It played out exactly how I imagined it would when we wrote it." The other two nodded their agreement as she spoke. "I want you two to really think about how you felt in that scene for our meeting later. We've taken notes, but we'd like to hear it from the other side too."

Bella and I nodded – it was nice to be on a set where your opinion really mattered. I had already seen that this was not just a ploy to get the actors on side, but actually something they really believed in; after all, they changed a scene just because I had suggested it during my first audition. Sue led the writers away again to the next set, which was just getting the finishing touches for the next scene. It was the scene that involved Alice and Tyler and was going to actually be filmed in Paris; they wanted to get the scenes that we would be filming overseas as near perfect as possible so that we could do the job quickly and efficiently once we were there. Alice and Tyler were already walking towards the right part of the lot, leaving Bella and I alone with the crew members busy around us.

"That was one intense scene, huh?" Bella said conversationally as we started heading in the right direction ourselves.

I nodded in agreement. "It's weird to think that these two people really were that obsessed with each other; that invested in the other."

"What? Never felt that all-consuming passion for another person Edward?" she teased, but there was a hint of real curiosity behind her mocking tone.

I shook my head. "Not really," I admitted; my tone was far too serious for the way in which she had asked the question, but I couldn't seem to help it. "I don't know if it's really feasible to feel that much for someone else without it destroying you."

Bella stopped walking and looked at me intently, studying my expression before she spoke again. "That's an extremely bleak view on things."

It wasn't what I expected her to say, but then again I hadn't really expected her to say anything in particular. She started walking again before I could think of a response to her comment. "What about you then?" I called after her, quickening my steps so that I would catch up and be beside her again.

"What about me?" she shot back, trying to avoid the question.

"Have you ever experienced anything that powerful?"

She shook her head quickly, which did surprise me. Bella had been with her boyfriend for three years and she still hadn't felt that kind of all-consuming fire that had been described in the text? She was only 15 when they got together and she was only 18 now, which made her exactly the right age to experience that kind of life-altering emotion. I didn't exactly have a normal childhood so it wasn't as if I had ever felt anything of the sort, but Carlisle had himself been privy to the intense emotions that only youth could bring. Surely Bella would have felt something similar to the words that we were bringing to life – maybe it wasn't as destructive, but it should have felt just as enormous. Maybe she just didn't want to divulge that kind of personal information – that thought kind of stung, but I didn't want to dig further into that can of worms; I couldn't afford to.

*

**BPOV**

It surprised me that I had answered truthfully when I denied having ever felt that kind of overwhelming love for someone; surprised me and then sent me into another spiral of guilt. Shouldn't my first love have been crazy, all-encompassing and irrational? Yet it wasn't. I loved Jake, sure, but I wasn't so in love with him that he took over every part of my life; I mean wasn't that exactly why we had to take this break in the first place? Was that what was wrong with our relationship? Had there been this problem from the very beginning? I tried to remember back to the first time that Jake and I kissed and I just couldn't remember ever feeling the way that I had been directed to, as Kristen. I mentally shook my head, ridding myself of these ludicrous thoughts. I had never before believed that love had to be this fiery entity that consumed your very heart and soul and now I was questioning not only the current state of my relationship, but also its history? I walked a little faster, ahead of Edward, wondering what the hell was going on with me lately. This movie was already getting to me and we hadn't even started filming yet.

I sat down on a seat next to Alice knowing that Edward wouldn't follow me, or if he did, he certainly wouldn't talk to me in her presence. Alice and I hadn't exactly regained the ease of the friendship we shared before the incident yesterday morning, but there was definitely a thawing of the iceberg that had existed between us all of yesterday. I was still furious with her for jumping to all the wrong conclusions, but some of what she said last night to explain herself did make sense to me. Of course, some of it was also a bunch of shit.

_*_

_The only bright spot in my horrendous day had been lunch with Edward. I had to look at him twice very carefully to be able to recognise him when he walked into the diner. Even though I knew he would be getting his hair done today, in preparation for his transformation into Robert, I was still shocked to see the absence of the copper hue of the strands normally on his head. He looked...he looked _very_ different and it took me a moment to fully take in his appearance. His face was still the same and yet the difference in the colour and the style made him appear different; I couldn't really explain it. I preferred the copper colour myself, but had to admit that he looked eerily like the young version of the character he was playing – minus the almost permanent stubble that Robert seemed to wear. The only slightly bad part about the lunch was when I had very quickly, and very emphatically, discouraged him from keeping the new hair colour when we were done filming. Luckily, Edward had just laughed it off without further comment and I couldn't have been more grateful._

_The afternoon did not get any better; I was distracted on set one again and I wondered why the hell Sue hadn't taken me aside already and fired me. I was still carrying all of the emotional baggage from Jake – from the break, from last night and from his leaving this morning without waiting to say goodbye to me in person; I felt like I was grieving. I was also smarting from the insult that Alice had unknowingly inflicted; it reminded me a lot of why I didn't have very many female friends. I had almost believed that Alice would be different; that we may have behaved very differently from each other, but we shared the same core – I guess I was wrong. The fact that she thought I would have slept with Edward whilst I was still with Jake was so insulting that I didn't fully feel the effects of it until hours after. Then, finally, there was my relationship with Edward himself; this one had my head spinning in more directions than I knew there were._

_I never even crossed my mind that my friendship with Edward would get twisted in the way it was being and I certainly didn't think that it would be Alice twisting it. I would have understood if Jake had gone off the deep end a couple of days ago because of what he heard and saw that morning; I wouldn't have liked it, but I would have understood it in the end. However, I couldn't fathom why anyone else would ever get the impression that Edward and I were anything more than two people who were cast as leads in a movie. In my opinion, we had not even behaved in an overly familiar manner – we had hardly seen each other on set all week. Sure we came in together a couple of times, but that was because we lived in the same apartment building and more often than not, had to be in at the same time. _

_I was knocked out of my reverie by a knock on the door. Thinking it was Edward, coming over to read lines, I called that the door was open. As soon as the person walked around the corner and came into view of the kitchen that I was occupying, I suddenly wished I had used the peep hole – kind of like a call screening thing._

"_Alice," I said in greeting; it wasn't friendly, but it wasn't as hostile as I would have liked it to be. _

_Alice inclined her head to show that she had heard and acknowledged my greeting, but did not return one of her own. "I came to apologise," she said quickly. Well, she certainly wasn't one for prolonging the moment. _

"_Okay." I wasn't exactly accepting her apology, but I didn't want her here either and I figured that the quickest way to get rid of her would be to just say what I thought she wanted to hear without making any actual promises. However, my indifferent attitude was not going to deter Alice. She looked like she had something to get off her chest and she wasn't going to leave unless she said it, whether or not I was listening – and I wouldn't be listening. I turned my back to indicate this, pretending to be busy fixing up a sandwich, but actually just wanting to send the message that we were not having this conversation right now. Quite apart from anything else, Edward would be by shortly and if Alice saw him here, there would be no predicting what exactly she would do; perhaps this time she would do something that could get her arrested._

"_He likes you," Alice blurted out just when I started looking for bread._

_I stopped what I was doing, my mind struggling to process exactly what she was saying. "What?" She couldn't have actually meant what I had initially thought she did right? _

"_Edward likes you." Well, I guess she could. _

_I turned around to face her slowly. She was standing mid way between the dining area and the kitchen, looking defensive, but resolute. There wasn't a trace of doubt in her voice or in her expression and I had to wonder whether the woman was on some type of medication._

"_Of course he likes me," I agreed, deciding that maybe playing her comment off as a joke would make her realise the absurdity of her statement. "He's my friend; I would be pissed if he didn't like me."_

_She shook her head, her face showing only a fraction of the frustration that I was currently feeling. Alice didn't even know Edward and here she was, standing before me and trying to tell me about his 'feelings'; it was ludicrous. "You know that's not what I mean Bella," she argued. "The way he looks at you sometimes when he thinks no one else is looking-"_

"_Alice seriously, this is your apology?" I interrupted; I didn't want to hear anymore of her outlandish theories about who Edward felt about me. Edward had never even hinted at any kind of attraction to me and after what I saw this morning, I very much doubted that there was any kind of attraction there. Between Rosalie and Zafrina, Edward had more than enough beautiful women around him and if he wasn't already in a relationship, he certainly would be soon. _

"_I just want you to have all the information Bella," she persisted. "Edward likes you and all this friendship bullshit is just his way of trying to get close to you so that he can create problems between you and Jake."_

_Frustration was now an emotion that I had long ago left behind in relation to this conversation. "You need to stop talking about things you know nothing about." The venom in my voice was only very thinly veiled and that had taken all my control to make it so. "Whatever problems Jake and I were, or are, having have absolutely nothing to do with anyone else, not Edward and _not _you. If this is the apology that you were planning to deliver then consider it done and leave my apartment before you make it worse."_

_I clenched my hand to stop it from shaking; the anger and indignation running through me was almost too much to contain, but I was never one to be violent and I certainly was not going to start now. I knew, deep down, that Alice was not a bad person; whatever motives she had for saying these things may have been misguided, but she wasn't malevolent at all and I had to remember that so I didn't scream and throw her out of my apartment._

"_Bella, I care about Jake," she started to explain, her voice laced with the first traces of uncertainty I'd heard since she arrived. I guess she was sensing the fact that I was having trouble controlling the urge to scream at her right now. I opened my mouth to tell her that made two of us, but she carried on talking before I could even start to form the words. "I also care about you. I don't want to see either of you getting hurt."_

_I knew, somewhere within me, that what she was saying was a noble thing; that she was just protecting her friends and it was kind of nice that she had included me in that list. However, the larger part of me was still angry with her for a lot of different things right now and I wasn't in the mood to be accepting about her motives. I didn't say anything, unsure at what would come out of my mouth if I opened it. _

_It turned out that Alice didn't need my encouragement to carry on speaking. "Look, I'm aware that I handled things badly this morning, but I'm very protective of my friends Bella and seeing both you and Jake hurting and knowing that Edward was, in some way responsible for it-"_

"_He wasn't," I corrected quickly. Edward had never been part of it – even if he hadn't been sitting in my kitchen on the morning of Jake's arrival making suggestive comments – Jake and I would have still taken the same route; we would both still been apart and hurting. _

_Alice looked a little shocked and not entirely convinced by this revelation and I had to wonder what exactly Jake had told her. I knew he would never have told her a lie, but I also know he wouldn't have divulged all of our problems to her; they may have been close, but Jake knew that I wouldn't have wanted her to know and he was nothing if not always considerate of my feelings. _

_I turned around to face her now that my anger had abated slightly and I was sure I wasn't going to start yelling at her. "Look Alice, I don't have to convince you of anything," I told her. "I don't owe you and explanation of my behaviour or my friendships, but I can assure you that Jake didn't think Edward and I were sleeping together – he has more respect for me than that." I was referencing both Edward and Jacob there; Jacob wouldn't have really thought that I would cheat on him and Edward would never make a move on me when I had a boyfriend, even if he was attracted to me._

_I could see a look of acceptance and shame fall over Alice's face and I found that there was a feeling of satisfaction that washed over me as that happened; yes, I was an immature bitch apparently. "I'm sorry," she repeated, this time there was repentance in her voice. "I didn't mean to insult you the way I did." The sincerity in her voice was hard to miss and I had to concede a little that her heart was in the right place – well, when it came to Jake and I anyway. _

_I managed to give her a small smile, which was strained, but at least I was making an effort to appear friendlier. "I'm not going to say it's fine because it definitely wasn't but I understand where it came from."_

_She nodded her head, knowing that it was the best she was going to get for now, maybe for a long while in fact – I didn't know how long it would take for us to go back to how we were before this morning. She gave me a small, tentative smile before turning around and heading back out of the door. I watched her go, pause and then turn back around to face me. There was hesitancy in her eyes, but there was also a look of stubborn determination etched clearly all over her face. "I know you don't want to hear it and you may not want to believe it, but Edward doesn't just see you as a friend Bella."_

_She was gone before I could answer._

_*_

Sitting next to her now and thinking about the scene that I had just done, I began to wonder whether I saw Edward as just a friend. This question had been creeping up on me ever since the shock of seeing someone sneak out of his room yesterday morning, but I had successfully managed to forget about it in light of everything else that happened. However, now that I had nothing else to think about and on the back of one of the most unabashedly romantic scenes that we had rehearsed so far, I had to wonder: was I attracted to Edward Cullen?

I caught sight of him laughing with Tyler and Demitri on the other side of the set and my mind immediately came up with a positive answer; of course I was attracted to Edward. I had been attracted to Edward Cullen since I first saw him in that small, dark room over a month ago; he was a very attractive man. I would have ventured to say that Alice found him attractive too when she first saw him; maybe she still did now, but she would never have admitted it in light of how she viewed him. Being attracted to Edward was not an unusual thing and it was no big deal – everyone he met was probably attracted to him on some level. It was probably the reason that we had such good chemistry when we were doing the scenes together – love stories were always more realistic when the leads at least found each tolerable, if not attractive.

Of course, Alice's insistence that Edward was attracted to me did have me a little on edge around him, though I didn't exactly know why. I could admit to myself that maybe Edward found me attractive too, but that came as part of the job – you had to believe yourself drawn to at least some part of the other lead's personality and character to convincingly portray yourself as being in love with them – that was the reason many actors ended up in a shitty situation where they could no longer separate reality from fantasy; there was a purposeful blurring of lines in our trade. I didn't think that Edward would ever act on that attraction, not really anyway – he was obviously already otherwise occupied – however, what had me a tad nervous was the fact that I wasn't entirely sure what I would have done if he had made a move. Was my attraction to Edward strong enough that I would really act on it? So many questions – this film was already driving me to the brink of my sanity and we hadn't even begun filming yet.

The next scene was nearly ready to start; it was one of the scenes that we would be shooting in Paris just before we wrapped filming. It once again took place in a bar in Paris, but this time the venue was much bigger and more crowded, though there would be no extras in place for this reading. Jessica, Tyler and Alice were part of it, though they actually played very small roles within the entire thing; it was much more focused on Kristen and Rob and the way they interacted – as the whole movie was, I guess. As everyone got into place to start, I did wonder what Kristen would have made of the movie – was it true to her real-life romance? It did seem a little far-fetched at times when I read the script; it was hard to understand something that you had never seen or experienced, I guess. I found it hard to accept that there was something so big that neither of these two people saw it coming and it ended up destroying them both – hard to accept and terrifying to believe.

It was terrifying for two reasons; one was that I liked control – if not the reality, then certainly the perception of it. The second reason was that I didn't like the implication that it had on my life. If there was this absolutely life-altering love out there then what did it mean that I hadn't experienced it with Jacob? It was the second really, that was the most troubling and why I had been so uncomfortable in my conversation with Edward earlier. I didn't want to compare myself to this woman; I didn't want to put my life up next to hers for comparison, but as I got further into the process of becoming her, as I acted out more of her life and her story, I couldn't help doing just that. The big question was where the hell would that lead me?

* * *

A/N: Alice is perceptive as hell is she not? Maybe not quite as impressive as being able to foresee the future, but the girl is only human (in this story anyway). Jasper...now there's a mystery waiting to be delved into, but with all the Bella and Edward drama as well as the drama in the film that they're filming, is there any time? Well...drama is what makes a story right? Thank you for everyone reading this. I hope you're still enjoying the ride. Thank you to everyone to reviews too. I know I say it often, but I do enjoy reading people's reactions to the developments.


	16. Chapter 16 Reunions and Surprise Meeting

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves. No copyright infringement intended. **

**Chapter 16**

_Kate had her suspicions as to why her best friend had insisted they go out to this particular bar tonight of all nights when they were supposed to be up very early tomorrow to get the plane back to the US. It was a private plane, but Kate's father needed it later on in the evening for a business trip and so they had only a small window of time to be able to use it. Kate wasn't stupid, she had noticed her friend acting more than a little distracted lately and she could guess at the exact reason why. Even if Kris hadn't been humming the song that they had heard a couple of nights ago whenever she let her mind drift, it was very easy to trace the change of mood in her friend back to the first time they had met Robert Pattinson and the other members of 'Seldom Seen'. Even though Kate didn't know if the band would be playing at the particular location they were heading to right now, she would put money on the fact that they were, especially because of the way Kristen was fidgeting in the car right now. _

"_Are you okay?" she asked her friend, wanting to tease her a little. _

_Kristen's head snapped up at the sound of Kate's voice, not too sure what she had said because her mind had been on something else completely. She hadn't been able to get Rob out of her thoughts since she had seen him on Friday and she had been obsessively searching the next location and time that the band were playing. They had played another gig last night, but there was a function that she had to attend, which she couldn't have slipped out of unnoticed. It had almost been a painful night, sitting on the other side of the city to where she was desperate to be. She had been a very poor conversationalist and had heard Kate excuse her distance to several people throughout the night; no doubt her parents would hear about it and reprimand her for it when she got back home._

_The thought of home was not a welcome one for Kristen at the moment and she had been planning a way to get her parents to agree on an extended period in Paris. She knew that Kate would have to go back, but she really wanted to find a way to stay – at least for another four days. After those four days there would be nothing to stay in Paris for anyway and she would be able to go home – not happily, but she would be able to board the plane at least. _

"_Kris!" Kate called, watching her friend in a way that was both amused and slightly worried. "Are you okay? You keep spacing out on me."_

_Kristen shook herself mentally to get rid of the thoughts that were whirling around her mind; she needed to keep it together. "I'm fine," she told her friend; and she was. She was more than okay in fact; she was excited and nervous and so very happy to be going where they were going that she felt as if Kate must have noticed something off about her. If she had, her friend definitely hadn't said anything yet and Kristen was only too happy not to talk about it. She didn't want to share her feelings with anyone but the person that had inspired them because she felt as if it was something that they should share between themselves only. She didn't really have any doubt that he would feel the same way; she had seen it in his eyes, she had heard it in the way he said her name when they met. _

"_You seem nervous," Kate observed, indicating Kristen's hand, which was tapping a familiar rhythm on the leather seat of the car._

"_Do I?" she was hedging because she couldn't come up with a reason that she would be nervous unless she told Kate about the reason they were actually going to the bar tonight. Kristen would have gone out alone, but she couldn't find an excuse to give her best friend as to why she would be spending their last night in Paris on her own. "I'm just excited, I guess."_

"_About seeing the band or seeing Robert again?" Kate asked in a very nonchalant manner, as if her friend hadn't been keeping her infatuation with the musician from her._

_Kristen opened her mouth to answer before she really grasped what Kate was asking her and when she did, she shut her mouth pretty quickly and flushed a shade of pink that would not have been noticeable earlier on in the Parisian heat. However, she knew by the way her friend was trying to hide the grin that was fighting valiantly to get on her face that she had been sussed out. Kristen didn't know whether to be relieved, embarrassed or a little annoyed that Kate had figured it out so easily. It wasn't really that she was trying to hide it from her, she just didn't want anyone else to know until there was something tangible to know about. Right now all she had was a feeling that she couldn't even begin to describe and she knew that her friend would just pass it off as another one of Kristen's crushes. _

"_I don't know why you're being so secretive about it," Kate commented, now not even bothering to hide the teasing smile. "I can totally see why you'd be into him; he's not exactly unattractive."_

_Kristen returned the smile that her friend was shooting her, but she was holding her tongue from saying anything in reply to the comments that Kate was making. She knew that Kate was just being supportive, being the friend that she had always been, but the way she talked of Rob grated on Kristen's nerves. Sure he was good-looking and had the whole exciting musician thing about him, but it seemed as if Kate was grouping him in with any other guy and it just wasn't like that. Kristen had met many musicians and many actors, most of whom were far more famous than Rob and more classically good-looking, but there was just an inexplicable feeling she had about him and feelings that she had _for_ him that she couldn't even understand, let alone begin to explain. _

_They pulled up to the entrance of the bar not too long later and were immediately allowed entrance, much to the consternation of the many other people waiting in a very long line. The place was already packed, hundreds of people moving around, some to the beat of the music that was being played overhead and some walking to specific destinations. The band wasn't on yet, but Kristen was searching the crowds for him anyway; she knew he was somewhere about – she _felt_ him. She couldn't accurately express exactly what she felt about him or around him, but it was definitely not something that she had ever had any experience of before and she absolutely loved it. _

"_I'm going to the bar," Kate said. "Do you want anything?"_

"_Whatever you're having," Kristen replied, not even bothering to see her friend walk away. If she had turned even slightly in Kate's direction, she would have seen the small shake of her head and the knowing smile that she had plastered to her lips. Kristen continued to search the crowd for Rob, becoming more impatient to see him now that she knew how close she was to him. _

_He felt her before he saw her; knew the precise moment she had walked into the room, though he had no idea where in the large bar she actually was. His height gave him an advantage in his search for her and finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he spotted her light brown hair, and lithe figure on the other side of the room. He let out the breath that he felt like he'd been holding for the past two days now and smiled. He began walking to her before he even made a conscious decision to and even though there were several calls of his name from behind him, he didn't take notice and he certainly didn't stop. _

_She saw him only moments before he was finally before her and when he was close enough to hear her, she breathed out a sigh of relief. "Finally," she said softly, but she knew he heard it even above the noise of the surrounding crowd and the music because his eyes shone with amusement and excitement._

"_I was waiting for you," he replied and the absolute truth of his words hit her with a force she would equate to a 16-wheel truck. They didn't know each other – had only had one conversation and sure it had been a three hour conversation, but it was just a one-time occurrence nonetheless and yet she knew him; she knew him and he knew her. In some sort of cosmic sense, they had recognised something in each other and it was as if now there was no going back to when they hadn't seen it; whatever _it_ was. _

_He started leading her back to where he had been sitting, but she hesitated, remembering Kate who was still at the far end of the bar flirting with the bar tender so that he wouldn't card her. Rob sensed her hesitation and stopped to wait for her, knowing that she wasn't pausing because she didn't want to come with him. He took a moment to look at her as her attention was diverted to somewhere else in the room; she was absolutely breathtaking. Seeing her had triggered a sense of peace to come down upon him; a sense that started from within the depths of his being and spread outwards in a way that he was sure would show to the outside world. He wondered how exactly her sparkling green eyes had etched themselves into his brain, but he couldn't say he particularly minded they were now there. Kristen turned to him again and when their eyes met, a very similar smile lit up both of their faces. _

_Dan and Ashley, who had been watching them from the moment Rob just upped and left in the middle of a conversation, now gave each other looks of equal amusement and curiosity. They found it extremely funny that their lead singer, a man quite famous for having several women all over the world lusting after him, was now standing in the middle of a crowded Parisian bar looking at a 16-year old girl like she was the only thing in the world. It was slightly pathetic, but also highly entertaining. They continued watching their friend, ignoring much of the chatter around them, as a familiar blond girl joined the twosome who were still grinning at each other like idiots. _

_Kate found Kristen quite easily; it wasn't too hard when she had a very distinctive 6 foot 2 inch tall figure topped with a messy mane of hair right next to her. She had to roll her eyes and smile simultaneously when she saw the way they were looking at each other; in a room with more than a hundred other people, where the lights were dim, but not romantic, both Kris and Rob were staring at each other like they thought the other one was going to disappear if they tore their eyes away even to blink. She hated to spoil the moment, but it was a little sickening to watch and she thought that people around them would probably appreciate it._

"_Hello Rob," Kate greeted, smiling at her new acquaintance whilst she held out the glass of wine for her best friend._

_Robert hadn't been aware that someone had been coming towards them until he heard a voice in the distant part of his mind. He broke his gaze from Kristen's and found himself looking at a familiar blond. "Hello Kate," he greeted, his tone friendly. "Would you and Kristen like to join my friends and I at our table? We don't go on for another hour and a half." _

_Kristen was nodding and following Robert before Kate even had a chance to speak and she could only chuckle to herself as she followed the two of them, wondering whether or not they would even notice if she'd said no. She was greeted by Ashley and Danny quite enthusiastically and the three of them shared a knowing look as they glanced at their two friends, who had chosen to sit at the far end of the table, a little away from everyone else; the message was quite clear, they wanted to be left alone. Kate was only glad that Robert's band mates and other friends were friendly and easy to talk to, otherwise she would have been spending a good few hours looking for another source of company._

_Kristen wasn't really aware of what was going on with everyone else at the rest of the table; Robert had given her the names of the new people present, but she hadn't taken anything in and nor was she really interested. The only thing that she had come for tonight was already here, sitting with her, talking to her and laughing with her. _

"_I have to go home tomorrow morning," she told him when there was a little lull in the conversation that they had been having about their favourite places in Europe. She heard the break in her voice and the way in which it had dropped slightly when she told him this piece of news._

_Rob felt his entire face fall and he knew that she had seen it – he hadn't even had time to try and hide the disappointment he felt at hearing her words. He opened his mouth to say something, but couldn't get any words out as his mind was left reeling with the inevitability of losing her. Deep down of course, he knew he didn't exactly have her – he had only met her for the first time two nights ago – but that didn't stop the irrational thoughts from zipping through his mind. She saw the anguish in his eyes and reached out a hand to touch the strand of his hair that had fallen across his forehead._

"_I don't want to leave," she confessed to him, her voice nothing but a breath. _

"_Then don't," he urged her, catching hold of her hand as she brought it back to her side. "Stay, just until we have to leave for London."_

_She was nodding her head before she had even consciously agreed with him; there was never really any doubt as soon as he asked her – as soon as he had found her in the crowded bar actually. He brought her hand to his lips as she gave him her agreement and turning it so that her palms faced up, he kissed her very gently in the centre of it. It was a gesture of thanks and a gesture far too intimate for two people who had only had one conversation before tonight. That was certainly what was being thought by the seven other people surrounding the table. Each one was puzzled about the interaction, but none of them would ever have asked the couple at the end of the table about it; they seemed to radiate a bubble around themselves and it was quite clear that they were in a world completely of their own making._

"_It seems as if your friend is very infatuated with ours," Dan observed to Kate after having watched the palm kiss. _

"_It seems as if the feeling is quite mutual," Kate countered. _

"_Yeah, they're both acting like very rude, unsociable idiots right now," Ashley half-joked, making everyone on the table chuckle. _

"_Rob's always an unsociable idiot," a guy called Jackson spoke up making the entire table laugh once more. They didn't bother keeping their voices down, but nothing seemed to penetrate the privacy that Robert and Kristen had created for themselves and they didn't react at all._

_For the rest of the time before their set, the couple at the end of the corner barely talked to anyone else. At times it looked like they were in deep conversation with each other, but there were also times when it seemed as if they weren't doing anything but just sitting together or looking at each other. It was a strange and puzzling thing to watch, but obviously these two individuals were very taken with each other. Kate wondered whether this wonderment that they seemed to find in the other one would last when they were thousands of miles apart. Kristen certainly didn't have a great history with relationships – she didn't have an extensive history of boyfriends at all being only 16. _

_The band was once again on fire, so much so that they were actually better than the first time that Kristen and Kate had seen them. Some of the songs they played were different – to please the normal crowd who came to the bar without knowing about the gig – but they were still amazing. Their set lasted two hours in total and in that time Kristen's eyes didn't leave the stage once; she was solely focused on Rob. For his part, Rob had spent almost the entire night with his own eyes tracking Kristen's every movement, however slight. It seemed as if he was singing solely to her and if Kate had been one of the many girls who were obviously eyeing up the band's front man, she would have been bitterly disappointed. Even if they hadn't seen where his eyes had been fixated for nearly two hours, they were bound to have noticed that fact that he didn't even once glance their way; his attention was completely somewhere else._

_The bar closed shortly after the set finished and Kate was absolutely beat; it was a good job that she would be flying back on a private plane because she needed the few hours sleep that she could be able to have on the way home. Kristen didn't want to leave at all, which was understandable given that she wouldn't be seeing Rob again for a while. When they parted, there was a long moment where Kate looked away thinking that they would be passionately kissing goodbye, but when her friend returned to her side, there was no sign that Kris had been kissed to within an inch of her life. Her lips didn't look swollen and her hair was still as perfect as it had been minutes before. Kate did not understand what was going on between Kris and Rob and she kind of had a feeling that she wouldn't fully understand it even if Kristen had explained it all._

"_Are you ready to go?" Kate asked, knowing what the answer was going to be. _

_Kristen was more or less walking backwards as they made their way to the car parked on the other side of the street. The driver couldn't park at the front of the bar because of the multitude of vehicles already lined up there in time for the end of the gig. "Are you talking about now or later on this morning?"_

"_Both."_

"_No."_

"_What's going on with the two of you Kris?" _

_Kristen looked at her friend properly probably for the first time all night; she should have felt guilty, but she found that she couldn't really find it in her to do so. She shrugged. "Nothing really," she admitted, even though she knew it wasn't the truth. She may not have been able to put into words exactly what was happening between her and Rob, but she knew it wasn't nothing. In fact, it was almost the exact opposite of nothing because the things she felt; the way he affected her even though he wasn't there, it was surreal, something she had never heard of in reality. _

"_Well whatever it is, it's gonna have to survive the flight back to reality," Kate told her pragmatically. "A European romance is all very well and good, but back in the harsh light of Manhattan, everything may look a little different."_

_Kristen wanted to tell her that nothing would be different, but she got a sinking feeling that it wasn't entirely true. She was so sure of herself and of Rob that it was hard to see a time when she wouldn't be; there was a sense of security within her regarding this thing between them, whatever it was. However, she also knew how very different her life was back home – how different _she_ was when she was back home. Wasn't that at least part of the reason that she didn't want to board the plane tomorrow morning?_

_They were in the car before Kristen spoke to Kate again. "I'm not going home with you tomorrow," she admitted quite suddenly; they had both been silently contemplating the night on the ride so far. _

_Kate's head snapped from the direction of the window to her best friend. "You have got to be kidding me!"_

_Kristen shook her head. "I told you Kate, I'm not ready to go and I can always just get a commercial flight back in a couple of day's time."_

_Kate looked at her friend, worry rising within her; Kristen had always been a little more impulsive in their time as friends. She had always acted without really considering the consequences of her actions, but this was by far the rashest thing she had done – including the time she dived off a cliff and broke her ankle on some rocks at the bottom. _

"_What the hell are you going to tell your parents?"_

_Kristen shrugged, seemingly unworried by the prospect of having to explain this irrational act to her Mom and Dad. They would be easy enough to lie to anyway, given that they let her pretty much have free reign over the summer because they were far too busy doing other things to care; someone had to organise the events at the Hamptons after all. _

"_You know that I can't stay with you right?" Kate asked, trying to find any kind of way to change her friend's mind. "My Dad will go crazy if he sent the jet here for nothing."_

_Kris nodded, glad that she had an excuse to be alone for the next four days; she didn't want to have to reign in her behaviour and obsession like she had been doing lately – she just wanted to be free to be giddy and act ridiculous. "It's okay," she assured a worried Kate. "It's not like I'm going to be staying in run down hostels and hitching rides Kate. I have an unlimited source of money thanks to Mommy and Daddy, remember?"_

_Kate smiled tightly at her friend's attempted humour, but she was too tired and too worried about Kris. She was acting all sorts of crazy at the moment – more so than usual and in a completely different way. The two friends didn't speak again, both lost in their own thoughts about what was to come and what had happened. Kristen wasn't all that worried about her friend's reaction or what her parents would say; in fact, she wasn't worried at all. She was ecstatic that she would be staying and that Rob had actually asked her to stay. She didn't know what the next four days would bring, but she was pretty sure that when she finally got on a plane home her life in Manhattan would pale in comparison to what she had found here, in Paris._

_*_

**BPOV**

The meeting with the writers had gone fairly well; there was nothing that Edward and I hated that they absolutely loved, so it was quite easy to have them really consider our ideas. I had thought the second scene that we had read was a little forced. The story was all about their epic love affair; the unusual circumstances and the rare feelings they inspired in each other. Personally, I thought that the second scene was far too ordinary – it was something that could be found in any cheesy Hollywood romance and it didn't do the rest of the movie justice, never mind the actual poem the film was based on. Edward wholeheartedly agreed with me and although the writers didn't feel quite as strongly about its redundancy as we did, they agreed that it could be much better. The first scene was perfect in my opinion, but Edward was unsure about the piano piece that he had been asked to compose on the spot based on the emotions that were written on the page. It wasn't that he thought the piece was bad, just that he didn't think they fit with the emotions that his character was bound to be feeling in the moment – he agreed to work with the writers and Sue about the composition so that he would be able to really feel the right set of sentiments for the scene. The third scene was a little off, but none of us could actually put our finger on it; the chemistry was there and the writing fit the mood of the original piece, but there was just _something_ that wasn't working. The writers said that they would try and work something out to fix it, but they knew it wasn't going to be easy when no one could spot the flaw.

Edward and I had gone home together, but we were both so tired that we barely spoke to each other on the way home. Edward had mentioned earlier on that Rosalie was coming back to the US some time tomorrow – straight to New York in fact. I was so very confused about Edward's love life, but I didn't know how she could ask him about it without over-stepping my boundaries as his friend. I wasn't the type of girl who didn't think that men and women could really be friends, but with two people as attractive as Edward and Rosalie, it was hard to believe that _something_ hadn't happened between them. After all, something had obviously happened between Edward and Zafrina and I was willing to bet that he hadn't known her nearly as long as his beautiful blonde roommate. Then again, maybe Edward was the type of guy who liked brunettes over blondes; the thought made me smile for a fraction of a second before I started to ask myself why exactly it would please me to think this about him. I was far too tired to think about the whole Edward issue right now, too tired to fend off the many questions that were coming at me from my own psyche and too tired to even begin to answer them.

"What are you doing tonight?" It was Edward that spoke first on our way up the stairs to our respective apartments.

I shrugged. "Nothing too taxing. I'm completely worn out and it's just the first week of rehearsal," I complained. "Why? What are you up to? Aren't you so tired you want to pass out?"

"Yeah kind of, but Carlisle's coming over for a takeout dinner and some beers if you want to join us." Edward finished his invitation with a yawn, indicating just how much in need of sleep he was.

We had arrived at my door and stopped as I considered his invitation and he waited for my answer. Both of us were leaning on the wall for support – it really had been an exhausting day, not least because it had been such a long night last night. I wasn't sure whether or not I should take Edward's invitation to spend time with his brother again. I had already hi-jacked a dinner between them; I didn't want to interrupt this one too.

"I don't know Edward," I hesitated. "I think Carlisle may want to spend time alone with his little brother."

Edward looked at me for a moment before he smiled and shook his head. "I don't know why you always do that Bella," he commented, confusing me.

"Do what?"

"You always think that you're disturbing something when I invite you to do something," he explained. "If you really were in the way or weren't actually welcome, I wouldn't invite you in the first place?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. It just seems like you're always having to include me in your plans because I'm currently so pathetic that I don't have a life outside of the film." I looked away from him, realising just how true my statement was. I had been half-joking at first, but when I heard my own words, I suddenly saw that I had done a very poor job at making friends with anyone else on this set other than Edward.

"Unless I'm very much mistaken, you're life outside this film has just exploded on you so it's quite clear that it very much exists."

I gave him a very pointed look. "Thanks for pointing that out Edward. Your sensitivity and tact astound me." He replied with a smirk, to which I responded with an eye-roll. Sometimes the guy was just so god damn cocky he made me want to shove him hard just to watch him fall on his ass – yes, he did cause me to regress to my 5-year old self. Edward was so full of contradictions; one minute he was bashful, nervous and humble and the next he was confident, chatty and rather quite flirty. I couldn't quite work out the pattern of his behaviour, but it was suffice to say that I found him more than tolerable – hence the reason he seemed to be my only friend.

"So are we going to have to order extra for you or what?" Edward urged, gently nudging me with his shoulder as if he thought this would coax me into making the decision he wanted me to.

I thought for a minute or two longer. I wanted to accept the invitation for several reasons; the first of which was that I really did enjoy spending time with Edward and I had also enjoyed spending time with Carlisle the other night. The second reason was that I really needed to be _out_ and with people right now because whenever I got a moment to myself, I'd invariably start dissecting either my relationship with my Mom or my relationship with Jake; both of which were pretty much non-existent. The mood swings I was getting ranged from anger to depression and right around to frustration – at myself, at them, at _life_. I had been extremely glad that Edward had stayed so late last night, late enough so that I hardly spent any time alone and awake; I didn't quite know how well I'd handle that unless I had something else to keep me occupied.

I knew that Edward could tell exactly when I'd made my decision because he gave me a triumphant smile before I'd even uttered a word. "Sometimes, I think you put on the shy act to get the women to flock to you," I told him, shaking my head.

He let out a laugh as I finally unlocked and opened my apartment door; Edward followed me in without even being invited. "I don't exactly see a line forming."

I bit my lip in order to stop me from commenting about how I had seen a very pretty one sneaking out of his room the other morning. I wasn't particularly comfortable telling Edward that I had seen a girl he'd obviously slept with doing the walk of shame; we were friends, but we weren't _that_ close. I walked into the kitchen to fix him a cup of coffee knowing that he wouldn't exactly have time to catch up on sleep if his brother was coming over for dinner. He took it gratefully and started drinking it even though it would probably be burning off the lining of his mouth and throat as he gulped it down.

"What time do you want me to come over?" I asked, opening the refrigerator to fix myself a glass of orange juice.

Edward shrugged. "Whenever you want. You can come now and keep me company whilst I wait for Carlisle to arrive if you want; I could probably do with your input on which take out menu to use anyway."

"Not a chance," I refused. "I really need to get some sleep Edward, otherwise I'll probably sleep the entire weekend away."

"Isn't that what the weekend's for anyway?"

Normally, I would have agreed; it was nice not to have to worry about working for two whole days and in days gone by, I would have probably spent the time catching up on all the sleeping I'd missed during the week. Rehearsals were always the time when most actors got sleep because filming was brutal; 20 hour days were not unfamiliar and serious bodily harm could come upon you no matter what type of film you were filming. This time though, in my attempt to prevent myself from spending too much time dwelling on my mistakes and wallowing in self-pity, I had arranged to visit my brother in Seattle. Of course, Sam didn't know that I was going; I wanted to surprise him and so had asked his best friend whether or not he would be in town.

"I'm not going to be in town tomorrow or Sunday actually," I told him. He raised his eyebrow in question, but didn't vocally express it; he wanted to leave it up to me if I wanted to tell him of my plans. Well, it wasn't like they were a secret – or even remotely interesting to anyone but me (and hopefully my brother). "I'm going to Seattle to visit my brother this weekend."

"That's a good idea," Edward commented. "It'll give you a chance to clear away the cobwebs and there's nothing better than an older brother to give you advice that they've garnered from years of experience, which you will ultimately end up ignoring anyway."

I laughed at that; it was true. Whenever Sam and I were in the same room together he would completely play up the fact that he was a couple of years older than me to encourage me to take everything he said seriously. Sometimes his advice did make sense, but more often than not, I found the hypocrisy of the words that came from his mouth to be too much to take. I knew that Sam just didn't want me to make the same mistakes that he had already paid for, but there was a lot to be said for just letting people stumble so that they knew what it was like to fall. Still, it was quite comforting to know that whatever I did or didn't do, whatever shit we went through and however much we annoyed the hell out of each other, Sam had my back and I had his. There was a comfort in that unwavering level of support – especially now that I was feeling like all else was crumbling before my very eyes.

"What are your exciting plans for the weekend?" I asked after a few more moments of silent thought.

"I don't know whether exciting is really the word for it," Edward answered, taking the last dregs of coffee from the mug in front of him; I don't know how the man did it, he must have had a mouth coated with steel. "I'll probably just hang out with Rosalie and spend some time with Jasper if he ever makes it out here."

"Alice's boyfriend is coming up?"

Edward grimaced at the sound of Alice's name and I had to roll my eyes at his immaturity. Okay, so she may have marked his face for absolutely no reason, but that didn't mean that he had to pretend to be in pain at the mere mention of her; we weren't children. "I prefer to think of him as my friend actually." Apparently Edward had been slapped backwards into fifteen years ago.

"Jealous?" I teased.

"More like I don't understand why my seemingly intelligent friend could be with someone who's mentally and emotionally unstable."

"She's sorry she did it you know." I was lying of course. Alice may have been sorry for insulting me and for jumping to the wrong conclusions about _me_, but she had certainly not expressed any kind of regret for using physical violence against Edward.

He snorted at that, not even considering it to be true. "No she's not," he corrected. He didn't seem upset by it, but I could tell that Edward had a lot of pent up frustration about the whole Alice situation. Obviously he couldn't confront her in the way he really wanted to. For one thing, he still had to work pretty closely with her for nearly three months and for another, one of his closest friends was dating her. He didn't like her and she certainly didn't like him, but they would be forced to be civil time and time again; something that would be easier to do if he kept his anger with her in check – not that she had afforded him the same consideration.

"She only did it to protect me from your seduction techniques," I only half-joked.

Edward spluttered and I was pretty sure that had he still been drinking some coffee, it would have been spat out all over my kitchen. "Are you serious?" he asked, his voice about three octaves higher than normal and his face a picture of complete disbelief.

"She thinks you have some sort of crush on me," I was laughing whilst I was saying it, but there was a strain in the sound, which I hoped he hadn't picked up. I didn't know why the hell I was saying the words, but I couldn't seem to stop them from spilling from my mouth. I knew, logically, that I didn't want to go down this road _at all_; I really didn't need, or want, to hear Edward's response to Alice's claims.

I met Edward's eyes and saw absolute incredulity in them; there was no other emotion visible in his slack-jawed face – clearly I had metaphorically blown his mind. We just looked at each other for maybe a minute, him still obviously reeling from the shock and me wondering what the hell was going on underneath the astonishment that he was feeling. Edward was just about to move his mouth in order to say something when a cell phone interrupted the silence that had descended upon us.

I placed a hand on top of the cell phone in my pocket and didn't feel it vibrating; the ringing was coming from Edward. He dropped his eyes and his expression was pulled back into something that was only showing _mild shock_.

"Hello?" he asked, sliding his cell open without even looking at the screen.

"Where the hell are you?" Even from across the kitchen, I could hear Rosalie's distinctively hoarse voice and British accent.

"Are you here already?" Edward was already off the stool that he had been occupying and moving to the door. I couldn't hear the answer, but whatever it was could be said very quickly because the next moment Edward had already begun to place his cell back into the pocket it had come from.

He turned around to face me. "Sorry, but I have to go. As you no doubt will have heard, the queen of England is at my doorstep and she demands to be let in pronto even though she's a day early. I'll see you later tonight though right, after you've rested a bit?"

I was even more hesitant now that I knew Rosalie would be there, but he gave me a pleading look until I nodded. He grinned at me as I watched him leave, closing the door behind him and breathed out deeply in relief. I was glad that he didn't have a chance to reply to what I had said – yes, definitely glad. I wasn't at all disappointed that I didn't have an opportunity to see how he would have reacted once the shock had worn off; nope, not at all. I groaned and walked quickly into my room, collapsing unceremoniously onto my unmade bed. I wanted to be able to flick a switch and turn my mind off, even if only for a little while. Ever since Alice had said what she did about Edward, I couldn't stop wondering about him as a little more than a friend. I knew that it was probably just some sort of transference from Jacob, but it was still slightly disturbing; I didn't want to keep wondering whether I liked Edward as more than a friend or whether he liked me as more. I already had enough mess in my life, I didn't want to make anymore; well, at least not until I had cleared up some of the others. Ugh, Alice really had a lot to answer for. It wasn't that I was suggestible by any means, but when someone says something so unexpected and shocking, it was very hard not to keep thinking about it. Very hard not to keep thinking about it and examining how exactly thinking about it is making you feel.

I also couldn't believe my luck at having agreed to join Edward and Carlisle only to find out that Rosalie would be there too. I hadn't spent much time with Rosalie even though I had spent rather a lot of time with Edward in LA, but I had the feeling that the woman did not like me. Maybe she could see the curiosity I held about her relationship with Edward and resented it, thinking that I should mind my own business. Really, she would have been right if she did think that; I should mind my own business, but the curiosity I had about the dynamics of their relationship was like a pink elephant in the room of my mind – I couldn't ignore it. I guess part of it was that I wanted to figure out just who the hell Edward Cullen really was. Was he the shy, humble guy that would look down at the floor every time a serious compliment came his way? Or was he the flirtatious, obviously handsome man that knew he could get girls swooning by just flashing them a smile? And why the hell did I have such a need to solve the mystery that was my friend?

I turned over and closed my eyes, willing myself to just go to sleep if I couldn't steer my mind away from topics I didn't want to examine. Just as I was drifting off into a hazy scene of green meadows, my cell vibrated in my pocket. I groaned, snapping back to reality too quickly for my liking; I should have left the stupid thing in another room.

'_I came back from work today and was about to call you before I realised that I shouldn't. I miss you.'_

Ugh!

**EPOV**

I took the stairs up to my apartment two at a time knowing that Rosalie would be getting angrier the longer she was stood in front of a closed door – patience was never a virtue she was graced with. I would have been annoyed by the demanding way she ordered me to come back even though she had told me only this morning that she wasn't going to be back until tomorrow, but she really couldn't have timed it better. The conversation I had been having with Bella had taken a very sharp turn into a subject I was not ready to face _at all_ – and I certainly didn't want to talk about it with Bella. The absolute panic I felt when the words had left her mouth filled every corner of my mind so that I couldn't find any words to refute the Alice's claims. In hindsight, I should have just laughed off the whole thing, seeing as Bella had been teasing me anyway, but I was struggling to stop my eyes from popping out of my head at the time, so there wasn't much room for thinking. Apparently, I had more reason not to like Alice than I had previously thought – she could actually get into my head.

"Well it's about time!" Rosalie declared as I rounded the corner so that my apartment was finally in view. Carlisle and Esme were stood together behind her, both smiling at me as I came nearer. "Could you have come any slower Edward?"

"Nice to see you too Rosalie," I commented dryly, walking straight past her to unlock the door. "Does tomorrow mean something else in England these days?

She stepped past me and into the now open apartment. "Plans changed and you would have known that if you bothered answering your phone once in a while."

I rolled my eyes and walked in after her, wondering whether how her being kept waiting was my fault when I didn't know she would be waiting. I was just about to open my mouth to say something about some of us actually having jobs to do when she dropped her bags and hugged me. The force of the hug was so great that I stumbled back a few steps before being able to properly regain my balance. I smiled as I put my arms around her; Rosalie may have been bitching at me not a minute ago, but she obviously missed me and I was more than glad she was back. We let go of each other not too long after, hearing both Carlisle and Esme chuckle at our antics, as if we were amusing children.

"Hey Esme," I greeted. "How was the flight?"

"It was okay," Esme told me, following Rose and me to the lounge. "Nothing too exciting happened."

"I never understood why people asked how a flight went," Carlisle mused as he sat down next to his fiancé. "I mean pretty much everyone in the developed world has flown and it's always the same. You go up, you cruise along and then you come straight back down; not really that much change in the routine no matter where you fly to or from."

"It's called being polite Carlisle," I laugh. "I thought you of all people would appreciate that."

I grabbed the bags Rosalie had unceremoniously discarded and put them into my room, which would be hers for the next few days. I called to them all to make themselves at home, which they had already begun to do before the words had even entered my head. It was amazing how quickly Rose had managed to find everything even though she had been here for all of two minutes. By the time I'd walked back out to join everyone, she'd grabbed a pack of chips and a few bottles of beers for everyone to consume. They were all sitting in the living area, looking around the place with mild interest and commenting on the surprising lack of mess about the place.

"You all talk as if I would normally live in a pig sty," I commented as I grabbed the fourth bottle of beer and sat on the floor – the only available seat left after Rosalie had sprawled out over the second, smaller sofa.

"Not exactly a pig sty," Carlisle corrected. "Definitely some sort of animal holding though."

I looked at my brother with exaggerated disapproval. "Your attempt at humour is insulting to anyone who has ever told a joke Carlisle."

Esme and Rosalie both laughed, Rosalie taking it a little further and snorting a bit as she took a long gulp of her bottle; ladylike as always then. "We were just surprised at how free of takeout boxes and empty bottles this place was Ed," Rosalie cleared up.

I shrugged. "I haven't been eating much takeout or drinking, I guess. I mean I am here to do this little thing called work you know." I wanted to stop talking about this. In truth, I had been eating a lot of takeout and drinking several beers, but that had mostly been done at Bella's place and I wasn't stupid enough to admit that out loud. It was bad enough that Carlisle knew I was attracted to Bella; I sure as hell didn't want Rosalie to know about that little development.

We talked and teased each other a little more, all aware of the conversation that we were purposely avoiding. It turned out that they were home a day early because Esme had bumped into a friend of hers who was taking a private jet back to New York and they had managed to catch a ride, as it were. I wanted to ask about what had happened before the flight back, but as much as I wanted to know everything that Rosalie wanted to tell me about the London trip, I didn't really want to get into it with Carlisle and Esme there. Sure, they both knew about it and Esme had been with Rosalie this past week, but the conversation would be completely different if we had it in public rather than just the two of us. There was also the additional fact that I didn't quite know how to talk to Esme about the devastating events of her past. It was one thing to hear about it from Carlisle, but it was quite another to start openly talking about it in front of her when she hadn't first mentioned it to me.

There was still a lot to talk about even without having the most serious and obvious conversation. Both Rosalie and Carlisle made a comment about the new hairstyle I was sporting, which I was surprised hadn't come straight out of their mouths when they saw me. Rosalie, in particular, had teased me about it for at least fifteen minutes whilst I ran my hand nervously through it the entire time. Talking about the new hair, of course, lead to questions about the film. Esme, in particular, wanted to know how the movie was going. Even though she had been getting a regular update from the studio about the project, she wanted my opinion as to how everything was actually progressing. I was surprised that she had brought it up at first, but she correctly interpreted my expression by telling me that she had told Rosalie about the whole thing whilst they were in London together. I guess going through something as intense as they did really brought them closer together, which was only to be expected.

"Things are going well so far," I told her, turning to face her. "As you probably know, we don't start filming for two weeks and they're still making changes to the script, but everyone seems to be very committed to making it the best it can be."

Esme smiled at that. "That's always good to hear. You know, you look surprisingly like Rob. Wrong eyes and you're slightly paler than he was with a lot less of the five o'clock shadow that the man seemed to be sporting at any given time of day, but there is an uncanny resemblance between the two of you now."

"I guess casting did their job pretty well then huh?" I asked, a little more conscious now that she'd said that than I had been when my brother and my best friend were tossing jibes at me about my hair. Esme chuckled and nodded.

I had seen pictures of Robert and even I had to admit that there was definitely more than passing resemblance between the two of us, though of course there were the differences that Esme mentioned. He also looked older. Even in photographs of the time he was younger than I was now, there was something behind his eyes, some expression in his face, which made him seem as if he was at least ten years older than he actually had been.

"I still find it extremely freaky that you are involved in a film basically about someone in Esme's family and she turns out to be your brother's fiancé," Rosalie commented. "Talk about six degrees of separation."

"It is a bit of a coincidence," Carlisle agreed. "It's quite nice to know actually that even if I hadn't met Esme the way I had, we may still have had some sort of connection." He squeezed her hand and smiled at her, which caused both Rosalie and I to look at each other and roll our eyes at my brother's very convincing impression of a love-sick fool.

"You know that there are other people in the room right?" Rosalie said as Esme pressed a quick kiss to my brother's waiting mouth.

Carlisle looked at Rosalie, shrugged and kissed Esme again, this time for much longer. I averted my eyes quickly, not wanting that image in my head for fear of what else it may lead to. I may have been an adult, but seeing my brother extremely 'affectionate' with his fiancé still was not something I wanted to do. They were very welcome to do whatever the hell they wanted to in the privacy of their own home, but they didn't have to do it in mine.

"Ugh," Rosalie said before throwing a cushion in the direction of the loved-up couple. "Seriously, you guys need to stop doing that before I throw up."

Esme laughed lightly and removed herself from my brother's immediate personal space, but didn't exactly go far. "I would apologise, but I haven't seen him in nearly a week, so I'm not really sorry at all." She grinned up at Carlisle. "Well, I'm kind of sorry that you two are in the same room as us, otherwise we would be-"

"Oh god stop!" I shouted, standing up. "Just stop that thought right there before I have to find a way to bleach my brain out."

Carlisle laughed heartily at my reaction to the mere idea of the two of them having sex; there was no way that was acceptable no matter how old Carlisle and I were. It was okay to talk about sex – we were men after all. It just wasn't exactly okay to talk about the other one having sex because of the mental images that went along with it. "It's a perfectly natural part of a relationship Edward," Carlisle explained in his best doctor tone. He was being patronising on purpose. "When a man and a woman love each other-"

"You know that I can throw you out of here right?" I asked him, sitting back down. "I mean it is my apartment and there is security around."

"You're already turning into a diva a week into the job," Rosalie joked.

I turned my head towards her, accusation in my face. "I thought you were supposed to be on my side?"

Rosalie shrugged. "I have no affiliations or loyalties in this matter Ed," she informed me casually. "I enjoy taking the piss out of both you and your brother equally."

I shook my head in pretend disgust. "You British are so damn fickle."

We continued to trade insults and laugh until we had cleared out the beer in my fridge and started to get hungry. No one wanted to go out for food, so I grabbed the several take out menus that had been delivered to my door in the past week. Just as we were sifting through them and deciding what we should order, there was a knock on the door. I started to get up and answer it, but Rosalie had already shouted for whoever it was on the other side to come in. I looked up in time to see Bella walk through the door with a six pack in her hands, though goodness knew how she had managed to get it given that she was three years too young. She seemed a little hesitant about coming into the room where Esme, Carlisle and Rosalie were still loudly arguing about the merits of the different menus that were laid out before them. I smiled at her, hoping to ease the tension that was coming from her palpably and she tried to give me a smile in return, but it was shaky and I could tell she apprehensive about being here. I knew that she had been reluctant in the first place to accept an invitation to have dinner with Carlisle and I, now with Rose and a woman she'd never met before there, she must have just wanted to turn around and walk straight back out of the door. I got up and walked over to her, knowing that she wouldn't come any closer for now.

"Hey," I greeted, standing between her and the rest of the people in the room; perhaps it would be better for her if she didn't have to witness the craziness of the people that she would now have to spend time with. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

She chuckled at that. "Me neither," she admitted. "But I had to get out of my apartment." Her tone was light, but there was something about the way she'd said the words that had me feeling like there was a reason besides boredom that caused her to seek out company. I looked at her for a moment, but she didn't say anything more and she was looking over my shoulder in a way that made it clear she didn't want me to ask any questions.

I took the pack of beer from her hands and laid it on the small table to her left. "Did you get any rest then?" I had thought my voice was low, but it sounded a lot louder than I expected it to. Then I noticed that the arguing behind me had completely stopped and no one else in the room was making a noise.

I turned around to face the three people that had previously been talking over each other in an attempt to convince the others that their choice of meal was the best one. Each one of them was silently looking in the direction of Bella and me. When they noticed that I'd caught them, Esme was the only one that had the decency to look apologetic at the fact they had so obviously been caught eavesdropping. Rosalie looked confused, curious and downright accusatory when she saw who I was trying to hide behind me; Carlisle looked amused and slightly worried. I was both a little annoyed that my family and friends would be so damn embarrassing and anxious that Bella didn't interpret it in the wrong way (or the _right_ way) because the girl was already nervous enough about being here without my crazy mix of nearest and dearest scaring her away.

Carlisle was the first one to recover and pretend like they hadn't been looking at us like we were animals in a zoo just moments before. "Hello Bella, nice to see you again."

Bella stepped from behind me to smile at my older brother. "Hey Carlisle," she greeted in return. Her voice was quieter than normal, but it didn't show a hint of the anxiety and discomfort that she must have been feeling after being noticeably gawked at for at least a minute. "Sorry for interrupting. Edward invited me to have dinner with you guys."

I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her; she was apologising for being here when really she should have been receiving their apologies for being so rude when she first walked in. Carlisle shook his head. "The only thing you were interrupting was the start of a blood bath. Rosalie insists that we should order Indian food, but no one else particularly likes it."

I had expected Bella to make some sort of comment about all of us just ordering different kinds of food from each other, after all, that would have been the most sensible thing to do. Instead, she laughed and started walking towards the seating area, easing her way onto the floor where I had been sat only moments before. "I have to agree with Rosalie on this one. Indian food is amazing and there's this one place on the other side of the city that makes the best lamb jalfrezi I have ever tasted."

I was surprised at how easily Bella had found a way to make herself comfortable in a setting that she had been so unsure about only moments before; she really was a great actress. She hadn't shown at all that she was surprised to find Rose and Esme there. I knew that deep down she was still nervous; I couldn't really blame her for feeling like that given that Rosalie was still looking at her intently. It seemed as if my best friend had decided to try and read Bella's mind as she sat down and conversed easily with my brother. I sat down next to Rosalie and pointedly looked at her, warning her to at least play nice whilst we had a guest. She merely shrugged at me and resumed her previous study of the girl that was now laughing at something Carlisle was saying about why exactly we had to all order the exact same type of food when it would have been a hundred times easier to order different things.

The tradition had started a couple of years ago when I still lived in New York. Rosalie had been living in Boston at the time and both she and Carlisle had come to visit me for a couple of days. It had started off with Rosalie challenging Carlisle and I, drunkenly, that we couldn't guess what she really wanted to eat at that moment in time. There were some forfeits involving being in public in various states of undress for the person that didn't manage to correctly guess the type of food that would satisfy Rosalie's alcohol induced hunger. Carlisle and I took our time to decide what it was we should order for her. We both took it extremely seriously and got very competitive. Finally our decisions had been made and within thirty minutes two deliveries were at the door. Carlisle had ordered Thai, whereas I had gone for the simple greasy American diner. She had a mouthful of each and promptly vomited everything she had consumed that night in the porcelain bowl of my toilet. Carlisle and I finished up the rest of the food, but each of us had eaten what the other one had ordered for the challenge. It didn't really make sense when we thought back to it, but it had seemed hilarious at the time to realise that we had ordered exactly what the other wanted without even realising it. Now, whenever we got together and ordered takeout, one person would always decide on what to order for everyone else, but there was always a fight as to who it should be.

I noticed after a while that Esme hadn't taken her eyes off of Bella since she entered the room. At first, I had thought it was just for the same reason that Carlisle and Rosalie had been staring at her, but when I really looked at the way Esme was looking at Bella, I suddenly realised why she would be so interested in our dinner guest. Bella was playing Esme's cousin and she had been made to look not too unlike the sixteen year-old Kristen Stewart. I had seen enough pictures of the woman to know that Bella's transformation was very close to the mark. Was it strange for Esme to see someone that resembled her dead cousin so much? Did it hurt her to see such a vivid reminder of someone she had loved a lot? Esme's eyes were taking in everything about Bella, from the way her hair looked to the way she smiled at her fiancé, grateful that she knew someone in the room besides me. I wondered whether Bella acted the way Kristen would have in the same situation. I wondered if Esme was remembering her late cousin as she studied the girl that had been tasked to bring her back to life – on the big screen at least.

I suddenly realised that I hadn't made any introductions yet; Bella had already met both Carlisle and Rosalie, so there were really no introductions needed that. However, I had to introduce her to Esme. Whilst I knew that Esme wouldn't tell Bella who she was, I had wanted the two of them to meet ever since I found out who Esme was and how she was connected to the film that I was a part of – or hoping to be a part of at the time. At some point Bella noticed that I hadn't said anything and she turned to me, her expression questioning my silence.

"I just realised I hadn't introduced you to Esme yet," I replied to her unspoken question. I gestured behind her to where Esme had now trained her eyes to me instead of Bella. "Bella that's Esme, Carlisle's fiancé; Esme this is Bella, a friend of mine."

Bella held out her hand, which Esme took after a slight hesitation. "I'm also the love of Edward's life," she joked, to which Rosalie's eyebrows rose so far that I'm surprised they stayed on her forehead. "Well, at least I am in the movie."

Carlisle laughed and I managed a weak chuckle as my mind reeled with incomprehensible thoughts. Her comment was innocent, made completely without any kind of thought to how they _could_ be interpreted, but I felt my heart speed up and my logical mind scatter completely. I didn't exactly know why her saying those words affected me so much; maybe because of what Bella had just told me Alice had said. I was kind of afraid that Bella would believe her friend, which would no doubt affect the ease of our friendship. I didn't want her to think that I was attracted to her and was only spending time with her to take advantage of her current emotional vulnerability. Esme did nothing but smile at Bella's words and I was sure that she didn't see Bella saying them for a moment, but the family and the friend that she had lost long ago. There was absolutely no doubt that Kristen had been the love of Robert's life; everything about his work after he met her screamed it once you knew who the woman he had been writing and singing about was. I was willing to bet that he too had been the love of her life and therein lay the tragedy of their story.

"It's nice to meet you Bella," Esme said evenly.

"You too," Bella agreed. She paused for beat, looking at Esme closely for the first time since she had gotten into the room. "I hope you don't think this is rude Esme, but you look very familiar. Have we met before?"

Esme shook her head, but I registered the shock that she had worked to quickly hide. "I don't think so," she answered. "I don't really mix with actors and actresses."

"You just...I just feel like I've seen you before, that's all," Bella explained. Ah. She must have seen pictures of the young Esme even though they were actually very few and far between. Esme had shown me some pictures of her and her cousin in their youth, but there were only a handful of pictures of her in the press and she had changed quite a bit over the years. Esme had told me that she didn't relish the public limelight that her family brought upon her and so she did her best to shun it. It was easy when not everything in your life rested on your family name; Kristen hadn't had it as easy.

"Maybe I just have one of those faces," Esme commented. She didn't look at Bella and I knew she didn't want this conversation to go any further. Esme wasn't the type of person who was able to lie naturally. Sure, she didn't give her secrets away easily, but that was just through not talking about her private life and her past, not through outright lying about them.

"Vietnamese!" Rosalie exclaimed suddenly out of nowhere. She didn't wait for anyone to figure out just what she was talking about before she whipped out her cell phone and started giving a list of food to whoever was on the other end of the line. When she was finished and the surprise of her outburst had worn off, everyone started talking about food once more, forgetting the conversation that had just happened.

Esme sat back looking relieved, but also rather troubled. This was going to be a very long night for her and I wondered whether she would ever trust Bella enough to be able to tell her about her connection of the girl that Bella would be portraying. I wasn't going to push it because it wasn't my secrets that were going to be revealed, but I had a feeling it would help the performance if Bella knew someone who could tell her about the girl that was involved in a modern day story of Romeo and Juliet.

* * *

**A/N: **Thanks to everyone who is reading this story and an extra thank you to everyone who reviews. So...the plot thickens eh? Bella and Esme finally meet and Rosalie is back on US soil. It seems as if it's not just everyone reading this that's questioning the nature of Bella and Edward's relationship...everyone in the story is too. When will they start questioning it and stop brushing it off? Oh...the course of true love eh?


	17. Chapter 17 A picture of Surprise

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 17: BPOV**

The thing about undertaking long journeys alone, in whatever mode of travel, was that they gave you a seemingly endless amount of time to think. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they forced you to think. After spending a good part of the night and some hours of the early morning at Edward's apartment, I spent a good portion of my journey to Seattle asleep. However once I woke up not even the in-flight entertainment or the book that I had brought to read could prevent me from doing the thing that I really didn't want to do – _think_. After Jacob had sent me the text message yesterday afternoon, I had fallen into a fitful sleep that was filled with confusing, blurry images that made my head hurt so much that I actually woke up. Apparently sleep could not be used to escape the current mindset I was in. Damn!

I toyed with the idea of replying to the message for about an hour before I finally forced myself out of bed, into the shower and up the stairs before I could actually pick my phone up and do something insanely stupid. A huge part of me wanted nothing more than to press a couple of numbers and hear Jacob's voice again. A huge part of me wanted my boyfriend back. Hell, I wanted my entire life back before it all became a huge mess; that would have been perfect. However, there was a small, but insistent part of my very muddled mind that told me to keep strong. I had done the right thing by agreeing with Jake that we needed to take time away from each other and I didn't want to go through that pain every two weeks. If we were going to have this break, we were going to do it right so that it would only need to happen this one time; I couldn't go through that all over again.

Did that mean though that I couldn't have any kind of contact with him? Jake and I had been friends for longer than we had been romantically involved and I couldn't imagine a prolonged period of time where I didn't talk to him. I caught myself at those thoughts because part of the reason that Jacob was pushed to come to New York to tell me that we needed a break was because I stopped taking his calls for days. Now, though when I knew I shouldn't be talking to him, I was suddenly desperate to reply to his text message? I really was a screwed up, selfish bitch. Maybe Jacob will realise just how awful a person I was and never want to get back together at all. Maybe the break will be permanent. I forcibly pushed those musings out of my mind because it hurt far too much to think about that possibility.

With the thoughts of Jacob and our extremely fragile non-relationship banned from entering my brain, thoughts of my mother and our severed ties infiltrated my now unoccupied brain. Really, it was like kicking me whilst I was down. Why did my mind hate me so much? Honestly, part of the reason that I had come to visit Sam was to maybe ask him for advice about what I could do to rectify the situation with Mom. I didn't want to tell him what had happened in detail – after all, I didn't want my older brother to hate me too – but I did want to know what he would do should he have been in my place. My Mom and Sam had always had a good relationship, which had only gotten infinitely better since I destroyed ours and so I thought it anyone could help me with his, he would have been the perfect choice. Even if he couldn't give me the shovel to dig my way out of the mess I'd created, I could have a good time catching up my with brother. I liked seeing him in his element where he flourished – away from me. I groaned rather loudly and slammed my head back onto the headrest behind me; it seemed as if everyone was better off away from me. Why the hell did I turn everything to shit?

Sam had actually had to move to the other side of the country to escape from me and he couldn't be happier than he had been since he did make the move. My thoughts inevitably turned back to Jacob and then I felt awful about the fact that I was more concerned about my boyfriend than my mother. The constant wondering of whether I was giving one problem more time over the other was making my head throb. I knew that I should really work on one problem and then the other; after all that was one of the reasons why I had decided to agree with Jacob's request about taking a break. I had to focus all my energy on getting things back on track with my Mom before I could do the same thing with Jake. My attention had been split a lot recently, what with work and my personal issues warring to take centre stage. I had to learn to prioritise instead of just trying to juggle everything to the point where I no longer had any free hands to catch all the balls in the air. The thing was, it was harder to separate the different aspects of my life than I had previously thought. Whenever I thought about failed relationships or broken bonds, every relationship I shared with people came into mind and I couldn't filter it out. Invariably, when I thought about Jake, I would think about my Mom and vice versa.

I shook my head clear of the thoughts about both of those problems, which brought forward my most trivial of current troubles. Edward Cullen. Personally, I thought that the whole being aware that Edward was good looking, funny, incredibly sweet and definitely desirable was coming from the fact that I'd just lost my boyfriend. It had been a long time since I even thought of another guy except Jake and I supposed that since Edward was the first guy really there after my 'break-up' I would have some complex sort of attachment towards him. Yes, that's exactly how I was rationalising the increasing awareness I had to Edward Cullen's allure. It's often said that men and women can't really be friends until the attraction between them has been acknowledged, played out and gotten over. I would guess that this was what was happening between Edward and me right now. Or rather this was what was happening in regards to my view on Edward right now because I had no idea whether or not this weird attraction was even mutual.

It didn't help, of course, that Edward and I spent an unnatural amount of time together. He had quickly become my best friend on set and the only person I really bothered hanging out with outside of work hours. I began to worry that I was using him as a substitute for Jacob's previous role in my life, which made me feel extremely guilty. If I could weigh up the amount of guilt I was carrying around on my shoulders at the moment, I was pretty sure I'd be classified as having super human strength. I didn't really want to think about Edward in the way I had been doing the past couple of days, but I had no choice in the matter. I had to watch everything I did around him in case I did start acting like I was replacing Jacob with him. I didn't want that and I certainly didn't want to give Edward the wrong impression of me or my intentions towards him. I didn't really see our relationship as anything more than friendship and yet I couldn't stop thinking about the building attraction I had for the guy. Needless to say, it was another thing that was causing me to go slowly insane.

Another two problems had arisen sometime in the course of last night. Dinner with Edward and his closest friends and family had been an uproarious affair, though very unexpected and very daunting. I don't think I stopped laughing for ten whole minutes in the six hours I was actually there. Carlisle and Edward's easy banter and teasing relationship was extended to include both Rosalie and Esme seamlessly; it had seemed like the four of them had known each other their entire lives. However, I didn't once feel that I was left out of the camaraderie they shared – they were very careful to explain inside jokes and references of their past to me when I got confused. Even Rosalie had been considerably warmer to me than in all the other times I had met her. The two awkward moments came at the beginning of the night and at the end.

_I had to call a favour in from Mike so that I could get the pack of beers I was currently holding in my hands, but I didn't want to show up without anything. People usually brought wine to dinner parties, so I thought it was only fitting that I gave Edward something that would fit in with what he told me we would be doing. I stood outside Edward's door and heard the laughter from within; obviously the occupants of the apartment were enjoying themselves and it didn't sound like it was just Edward and Carlisle. I hesitated before knocking, unsure as to whether I really should go in at all. Edward had genuinely seemed like he had wanted me to come along tonight, but that was really before he had found out that Rosalie was back and now I doubted that he would miss my presence given the sounds I was hearing. However, I had decided come to get away from the argument I was having with myself about whether or not I should call Jake or text him back. I had purposely left my cell phone in my own apartment so that I wouldn't be tempted. I didn't want to go back to my room now and just stare at my cell all night before finally breaking down and contacting Jacob anyway. I knocked on the door before I could change my mind and run away. _

_The noise from inside quietened, but instead of the door opening like I expected it to, a somewhat familiar voice hollered for me to come in; it certainly wasn't Edward. When I entered, I saw the source of the voice looking up at me from the sofa that she was currently lying on. Whatever Rosalie had been doing in England, it had certainly made her look even better. There was a smile on her lips which didn't exactly die when she saw me, but my entrance certainly stopped its progression. Instead her entire face showed surprise, which quickly morphed into suspicion and curiosity – two very familiar expressions whenever I saw Rosalie. I guess she hadn't known I was going to be here. Edward though was smiling at me from the floor on the opposite side of where his best friend was sitting. I tried to smile back at him, but I felt like I was being studied and evaluated by a very intimidating blonde woman even as she argued with Carlisle and a woman I had never seen before, but assumed was Carlisle's fiancé, so it didn't come off exactly like I intended for it to. _

_I didn't know whether to move further into the room and join them or say hello to everyone first, but Edward made the decision easier for me when he came over to talk to me. I was relieved; I didn't think I would have made it to where they had been sitting together because even with the shouting at each other, they were obviously very close and I just didn't want to intrude on that. He stopped in front of me, shielding my view of his three other companions, though I wasn't exactly sure whether it was for my benefit or his. Whatever his motivation for standing in my line of view of the rest of the room, I was grateful because this way I wouldn't have to see Rosalie's pointed glances in my direction – not that I couldn't still feel them burning a hole through Edward and to me though. _

"_I wasn't sure you'd come," he confessed. He was speaking rather softly, but he was close enough to me so that I could hear him easily even over the yelling behind him. I wondered vaguely exactly what the three of them were arguing about so passionately and insistently. _

_I chuckled at his very astute observation. "Me neither, but I had to get out of my apartment." As seemingly every other time I had been in Edward's company, my mouth formed words before I even had the chance to really think about them. I saw the question he wanted to ask flash through his green eyes and I hardened my expression, inviting no queries to be asked about my comment. _

_Instead of saying anything further Edward took the beer from my hands and I noticed the way the volume of the room behind him had suddenly fallen to near zero from almost deafening, I knew that it was no longer just Rosalie in that moment that had their attention on Edward and I, but I doubted that Edward was aware of it until his low voice almost echoed in the now silent room when he asked me about my nap that afternoon. He turned around when he realised that we had an audience and I watched everyone's face change a little when they in turn paid attention to the fact that Edward knew they were listening to our very innocent and rather boring exchange. Rosalie looked at him with a mixture of emotions that I could identify the majority of, but there was something in there that I couldn't quite put a name to. Carlisle just looked amused, though I don't know whether that was because of the fact that Edward and I were both probably sporting looks of extreme embarrassment or because he enjoyed teasing his younger brother; it was probably a little of both._

_When I caught Carlisle's eye, he smiled and greeted me in a rather easy manner considering he had been staring at me and his brother not thirty seconds ago. I had to chuckle at his blatant attempt to completely ignore that. "Hey Carlisle," I replied, stepping around Edward who hadn't moved since he turned around to face the small crowd watching us. I looked around at the two females in the room, barely glancing at Rosalie for fear of the expression I would find there. "Sorry for interrupting. Edward invited me to have dinner with you guys."_

_I thought for a moment that it would be Edward who dismissed my worries about disturbing the time he was spending with his family and his best friend, but I was surprised to hear Carlisle's voice instead of his younger brother's. Really, they sounded nothing alike, which surprised me. It wasn't just their accents that were slightly different, but it was also the way in which they spoke. Edward's voice was ever so slightly melodic, almost hypnotic in the right kind of setting. Carlisle's, though soothing, was far more authoritative than his brother's – the product of being the older child, I guessed. He mentioned something about Indian food, which I had to agree with even though he had said it was Rosalie I was siding with. You never knew, maybe she would stop looking at me like I was plotting to secretly kill her first born if she found out we had something in common._

"_I have to agree with Rosalie on this one. Indian food is amazing and there's this one place on the other side of the city that makes the best lamb jalfrezi I have ever tasted." I chanced a sidelong glance at the blonde to my right, but couldn't see her expression. Oh well, I had to give it a try and nothing I had said was a lie._

_It didn't occur to me at the time Carlisle said it why exactly they were arguing about what sort of food to order when they could have just ordered from several different places. However, when the thought came across my mind, it must have shown through because Carlisle then began to explain exactly why they didn't seem to have any autonomy when choosing what to eat. The story didn't make too much sense and I still didn't really understand why the rule had stuck, but when he told me that they had all been pretty drunk I kind of got it a little bit more. Whilst Carlisle was regaling me with that particular tale, I was vaguely aware that there were two sets of eyes on me; one set was Edward, who I could see looking at me and his brother from the corner of my eye. He had taken a place near Rosalie's feet. Surprisingly, the second set of eyes I felt on me was not the ice blue pair that I had expected. Instead, they were a warm, almost honey coloured irises of the woman I had assumed to be Carlisle's fiancé. I wondered why exactly she was looking at me, but brushed it off as being because she didn't know who I was and we had yet to be introduced. _

_It was only minutes later that Edward realised his oversight and introduced me to Esme. I was struck by her as soon as I properly laid eyes on her; it wasn't just that she was beautiful (I wouldn't expect anything less given that she was engaged to Carlisle), it was also because her face was incredibly familiar. Esme didn't have the sort of face that would be seen every day on the streets; she had striking features that you would remember if you'd seen before. I had definitely seen her before. I was thinking so much about where I could have seen her before that I made some insane comment about being the love of Edward's life. It was meant as a joke of course, but once I heard how it sounded, I wanted to call the words back into my mouth. I couldn't look at Edward at all when I'd said that in case I blushed and made it seem like I _wanted_ to be the love of his life. Yes, I had regressed into a 12-year old. I did, though catch Carlisle's expression of amusement, when the words escaped into the room and it was all I could do not to loudly beg the ground below me to open up and swallow me whole. _

_I focused on Esme instead so that I could compare her face to the mental catalogue in my brain of all the people I'd met. I was absolutely sure that I had met her before or at least seen her before – and recently too. However, when I asked her about it she denied it and became very defensive; not so much in her words, but definitely in her posture. Esme was hiding something, though what she was hiding and why she would be hiding it I had no idea. I was about to probe some more into where I could have seen her when Rosalie distracted everyone by finally declaring what type of food we were all going to be subjected to that night. I had never had Vietnamese food before, but I had to admit that Rosalie's choices were delicious and I was kind of glad that she had been the one to pick it because I wouldn't have thought to try Vietnamese and I would have definitely been missing something had I not tried some of the dishes that were ordered. _

_The night was exactly what I needed it to be; it completely kept my mind off of my own problems. The group were not only entertaining, but very welcoming; I would even go so far as to say that Rosalie warmed up to me just a little as the time passed. I would still catch her regarding me curiously from time to time, as if she was trying to figure me out, but on the whole she made polite conversation and didn't go out of her way to exclude me. Carlisle was just as warm and friendly as he had been the first night I had met him. It was hard to picture him as a serious doctor when he was around his brother because they did the typical male thing of goofing around a lot. Edward...well, Edward was just the same as he always was, though maybe he was a little more at ease when he was with his closest friends and family. He kept the conversation going and periodically asked me whether I was okay even though I more or less stopped feeling uncomfortable as soon as the food arrived._

_Esme though, well, she was a different story all together. I couldn't shake the feeling that I had seen her somewhere before – that I _knew_ her even. I wanted to ask her some questions, but she seemed to avoid being in a one-on-one conversation with me all night, though there were several points throughout that I caught her almost studying me. The curiosity was enormous and almost all consuming; if I hadn't been having such a good time, I would have combusted from the sheer weight of my inquiries. _

"_I'm going to have to go on a beer run guys," Edward said at about eleven o'clock. We had run out almost an hour ago, but it wasn't until Rosalie pointed out that she hadn't actually had a drink in about forty minutes when everyone else started to notice and object too._

_He was already moving towards the door when I sprang up and volunteered to go with him. There were questions I wanted to ask him that I didn't think anyone else in the room would tell me._

"_What's up?" Edward asked as we walked down the stairs of the apartment building._

"_What do you mean?"_

"_Most people would want to shirk the beer run, but instead you almost trample everyone else to come with me?" His left eyebrow rose in question. "What's that about?"_

_I shrugged. "Maybe I just wanted to expose myself to more of your sparkling wit." I grinned up at him, chuckling at the expression on his face._

"_Flattery will get you everywhere with me Miss Swan," Edward admitted, joining me in laughter. Perhaps it was the beer or perhaps it was the cool night air of New York that surrounded us with a feeling of buoyancy, which caused us to laugh like hyenas for the entire three blocks it took to get to a 7/11. _

"_Edward?" I asked him as we headed for the isle containing alcohol. _

"_Yeah?" He was bent down, looking at the different brands of beer available on the shelf. _

"_What's Esme's surname?" I asked as casually as I could, which wasn't very casually at all. I mean I couldn't have done it subtly whatever way I tried, but maybe I could have tried to disguise the purpose of the conversation more._

_Edward stopped and straightened up. "Is this is the reason you volunteered to come with me?"_

_I shrugged, not wanting to say no when it was so obviously a lie, but also not wanting to admit that I was only here to question him. "Would you be pissed if it was?"_

"_Pissed no," he assured me. "My ego may be severely battered and bruised though."_

_I snorted rather indelicately at that. "Oh please, after what I saw the other morning, I don't think your ego needs any other kind of booster."_

"_What?"_

_What? What the hell did I just say? I couldn't have just made a reference to having seen Zafrina walking out of his room a couple of days ago could I? I wouldn't have been that incredibly stupid. I quickly ran through the words that I had just said in my own head and it turned out that yes, I had indeed been that stupid. Fuck. I really needed to solve this whole problem I had of just blurting out words whenever I was around Edward Cullen; it was a dangerous illness. _

"_Are you avoiding my question?" Offence is a good defence right? That's the tactic I was going for here anyway; hopefully Edward would go along with it. _

"_What was the question?" Either he hadn't really understood exactly what I had been implying or he had and he didn't want to talk about it with me. Both of those reasons worked for me – just as long as he didn't probe further into what I had just said._

"_What's Esme's surname?" I repeated. I watched his face go blank and knew that it wasn't just Esme who was hiding something from me, but Edward too. That thought made me both angry and sad. I had shared a lot of my personal shit with Edward in recent days and I had thought that we had turned a corner in our friendship. I knew I was being illogical in being slightly indignant that he would keep a friend's secret from me, but my alcohol addled brain would not listen._

"_Well, in about three weeks it's going to be Cullen." Edward was buying time; he didn't want to tell me, but he didn't want to lie to me either. My anger at him faded just a little bit, but I still wanted some answers._

"_I know whatever it is that you're hiding from me right now isn't your thing to tell, but please can you just reassure me that I haven't gone mad and I do actually recognise the woman your brother is engaged to."_

_Edward didn't say anything to me whilst he grabbed a couple of six packs. He walked towards the counter still without replying and I knew then that he wouldn't give me the answers that I wanted. I sighed heavily and went after him. I was starting to think that I'd annoyed him a little bit when he still wouldn't speak to me after we had gotten out of the store. _

"_You're not crazy," Edward told me just as we rounded the block that would take us to the apartment building. I looked up at him, relieved and surprised. "It could well be very possible that you do recognise Esme, though I doubt that you know her."_

_I smiled at him. "Thanks," I said. _

_He shoved my shoulder with his softly, or at least that's what he would have done had I not been nearly a foot shorter than him. It ended up that it was actually the side of his torso that knocked into my shoulder. "It's what friends are for right?"_

_I nodded. Yeah. Friends. Edward and I were friends. _

_*_

_Knowing that I wasn't imagining things regarding neither my recognition of Esme nor the fact that the group were hiding something helped a lot. I was able to really focus on the conversations for the rest of the night without trying to work out where I had seen the woman sitting not ten feet away from me. Esme was an extremely nice woman and even though I had only known them for a short time, it was obvious just how good she and Carlisle were together. They hovered around each other in an almost unconscious manner; as if they were always aware of where the other one was and had to be close by. The way she looked at him reminded me a lot of the way heroines in novels were described to look at the love of their lives. Carlisle on his part, looked at her like she was the sun, moon and the earth, like she was the air that he breathed and the earth that he walked on. It was both a pleasure to watch and extremely painful. It was very hard to watch a couple together that were so obviously in love when I was walking a fine line in losing the first and only guy I had ever loved. _

_It was when I started getting contemplative and depressed about the status of my relationship with Jake that I decided it was time to go home. I had obviously had too much to drink and all alcohol did was loosen the tongue and let out feelings that you had been trying to repress for a very long time. As I had already proven, not only was I emotional when I was drunk, I was also rather emotional. _

"_As much as I would love to stay, I have a flight to catch tomorrow morning," I told the group during a lull in the discussion about the state of American versus British politics. I glanced at the clock on the wall and my eyes widened. I hadn't realised it was so late. "Or rather this morning." It was already two o'clock in the morning and my flight left at nine-thirty._

_I was already very nearly at the door when Rosalie of all people offered to walk me to my apartment. "Just to make sure you get there safely with you being pissed and all," she had said. _

_I was too shocked to object and instead lead the way to my own humble abode. Rosalie kept up with me easily and the entire way down, I could tell that she was watching my every move and studying my expression. I felt uncomfortable, embarrassed and annoyed all at the same time. I don't know what the hell the woman's problem was, but I didn't appreciate feeling like I was waiting for her judgement on me – she had no right to be making me feel like I was on trial. I didn't know whether Rosalie felt that I was threatening her friendship (or whatever) with Edward, but she had absolutely no right to always make me feel like I was doing something wrong. It wasn't like she owned Edward and had the sole right to be his friend; she was being a ridiculous bitch and I wished like hell I had enough courage to face the blonde Amazon walking beside me._

"_Look, Bella I feel like I should apologise." My head snapped up in utter astonishment. That was just about the last thing I had expected her to say to me. She smirked a little when she saw my expression. "It's not that I don't like you. I don't have anything against you at all." I couldn't hold back the snort that erupted from me with that comment. She sure had a funny way of showing that she didn't have anything against me._

_Rosalie paused for a moment whilst I composed myself. When she was sure that I wouldn't burst out laughing or say something in reply, she continued. "I care a lot about Edward. He's my best friend and he's done a lot for me, for everyone he knows really." I could totally see Edward being the white night for those who knew him, but I didn't understand where she was going with this speech. Was she telling me to stay away from him? Was she finally going to shed light on the nature of their relationship? I waited for the rest of her explanation without saying a word. _

"_When I first met you, I thought you were going to hurt him," she finally said. I opened my mouth, but I didn't know whether I was going to protest or ask her to clarify exactly what she meant by that. Either of those would have been good responses to her comment, but Rosalie carried on speaking so I didn't have a chance to interject. "But I can see that you two really are friends and I can't deny that he needs a friend right now to share this experience with him. So I'm sorry for being a bitch before. He's just...he's important to me, you know?"_

_We were already at my door when Rosalie's apology and explanation finally ended and I was left incredibly gobsmacked. I don't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that she turned to leave almost as soon as she had said the words because although I had no idea what to say back to her, there were plenty of things about her apology that I wanted to ask questions about. I recovered my wits enough to be able to watch her leave, but it was a good ten minutes before I was actually able to remember that I had to use my keys to open the door in order to get inside my apartment. My mind was full of information, but I couldn't process any of it. Why the hell would Rosalie think I would hurt Edward on the very first day she knew me? Why was she so surprised to find that we were actually friends? I didn't understand her apology any more than I understood her previous attitude towards me. What the hell was it with everyone and their cryptic shit?_

_*_

_Needless to say, I hadn't gotten much sleep in the early hours of this morning either; even with the amount of alcohol in my system it was hard to get the questions to leave me the hell alone. At around five in the morning, I finally gave up tossing and turning in my bed and turned on my computer. There was something nagging at the back of my mind, but the idea wouldn't form fully enough so I could recognise it. I tried to read, but I couldn't concentrate on the words in front of me and so after about thirty minutes of trying – and discarding – many books, I gave up. I switched my laptop on at six in the morning and found the one thing that finally settled the buzzing in my brain. I had bookmarked several pages about Kristen's life when I had obsessively tried to learn everything about her last weekend. There were newspaper articles detailing many significant events in her life throughout the years – from her birth to her death. It was a picture of her funeral that caught my attention. It had probably been taken from a bush somewhere on the cemetery grounds and showed many of the mourners that gathered to say goodbye to woman whose life had prematurely ended. One of the mourners, dressed in a simple black dress and a black hat with half a veil covering her striking face was very familiar. The picture was in black and white and her eyes were downcast anyway, but I had no doubt in my mind that they were honey-coloured eyes that were expressing grief at the loss of Kristen Stewart. There was no mistaking the bone structure of that face, no matter how much time had passed – that never changed. Holy shit! Was Esme somehow connected to the girl that I was supposed to become for the next three months of my life? Was that the secret that everyone in Edward's apartment had been hiding last night?_

_*_

I hadn't had any more time this morning to try and really figure out just who the hell Esme was and how she was connected to Kristen. Esme wasn't mentioned once in the film, but she had obviously been a big enough part of Kristen's life to have been invited to her very small and private funeral. Because of the circumstances surrounding her death, no one in Kristen's circle had wanted a big spectacle of a funeral. There had only been close friends and family invited and if Esme was there it must mean she was counted as very close indeed. But how close was close? Was she family or was she a friend? Did she know any more about the mystery surrounding Kristen's supposed relationship with Robert and her death? More importantly, did anyone else in the film know about Esme apart from Edward? Had he only auditioned for the film because of her? I had thought that figuring out where I recognised Esme's faces from would ease my mind some, but it only made the questions worse.

The whole thing with Rosalie was also contributing to the million and one things causing me to get a headache. She was apparently over hating me now, but the things she'd said bothered me. I didn't understand why she would have assumed I would have the capabilities to hurt Edward the first time she met me. Maybe I had come off as a crazy stalker after all and she was afraid that I was going to do something to him in a psychotic break. Maybe she thought that I had the power to stop Edward from getting the job. Maybe a lot of things, but there was one maybe that I hadn't allowed to cross my mind earlier this morning and I sure as hell wasn't going to allow it to cross my mind right now. That was a maybe that just wasn't going to come to light, no matter what I had to do so repress the ideas.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are now beginning our decent into Seattle. Please ensure that your seatbelts are fastened."

I snapped out of my thoughts and forced myself to think of happier, lighter thoughts. I would be spending the entire weekend with my older brother, who always kind of made me feel like a normal kid. At this very moment in time, normality was exactly what I needed; maybe this weekend would be so good for me that I would quit the whole acting thing and just go to school like millions of other 18-year olds the world over. Surely like couldn't be as complicated as it was now if I wasn't in the entertainment industry. I mean wasn't normal described as exactly that because there was no drama, no kind of unusual coincidences and mysterious lives to ponder over? Hmmm...sometimes I wondered why people wanted to be different at all when being part of the general crowd sounded like the best thing in the world.

*

"Surprise!" I yelled out when my brother swung the door to his apartment open. Unfortunately I wasn't the only one with a surprise in store as Sam came to greet me in a fluffy pink robe that reached about mid-thigh. "Oh holy shit!" I averted my eyes, but it wasn't in time to stop them from burning.

"Bella?" My brother's voice was incredulous.

"Samantha?" I asked, eyes still not going in the direction of the doorway that my older brother was occupying.

"Oh haha," Sam said sarcastically. "Just get inside. I don't want the neighbours investigating the source of all the laughter that's going on because of your jokes."

I stepped past my brother and into his small apartment, my eyes shielded by my right hand to stop the sight of him in that robe from permanently damaging my retinas; I liked being able to see thank you very much. Obviously the robe was not my brother's and there was a girl somewhere in his apartment – I just hope that she wasn't in any state of undress when I met her. I assumed that I would be getting to meet the Leah that Sam had talked about when he had last been at home. My brother, although by no means a monk, wasn't exactly the type of guy to bounce from one girl to the other – well, at least not anymore. Besides which, he had seemed pretty smitten with the girl when he mentioned her and the fact that he had given any details about her existence at all proved just how taken he was.

Sam walked into his room mumbling something about getting some clothes on as I sat myself down in a very comfortable looking arm chair opposite the large flat screen TV that was undoubtedly the focus of the whole room.

"You should have thought of that before you answered your door," I called after him. He replied by flipping me off just before he shut the door to what I assumed was his bedroom.

The door opened again almost immediately and I was about to congratulate my brother on his super human speed when I noticed that it definitely wasn't him who walked out. The girl coming towards me with a slightly self-conscious smile on her face was slight with short black hair cut into a very stylish bob. She had tanned skin and huge brown eyes that held some sort of apology in them. She stopped when she was on the other side of the coffee table placed not quite in the centre of the room.

"Hey," she greeted. Her voice was quiet, but confident and I had to admire her for being brave enough to come and say hello to her boyfriend's sister when she knew that I had worked out exactly what they were doing before my arrival. I gave her my most friendly smile; the one I wasn't exactly known for. "You must be Bella. I'm Leah, Sam's girlfriend."

"I know," I told her. I was kind of expecting her to hold out her hand for me to shake because her words sounded a little formal. Then again, what the hell had I expected her to say? She was certainly handling the situation much better than I would have. "He mentioned you when he was home last month."

The pleased expression on her face didn't go unnoticed by me, but I chose not to dwell on it; the situation was awkward enough for the girl.

"Sam didn't mention that you were coming," she told me, no doubt trying to explain her presence here.

"Sam didn't know," I told her. "I wanted to surprise him and asked Jared whether he'd be here this weekend."

Leah nodded and started to get up. "I should probably go then," she said. "I don't want to deprive you guys of time together. Sam's always saying that he doesn't get to see you nearly often enough."

I was surprised by this comment, not because we did see each other that often, but because I didn't think my brother wanted to see me more. I knew that I would have loved to spend more time with him, but sometimes, I really did think that Sam liked being away from me. "Well maybe if he could get dressed quicker, he could spend more time with me right now," I joked.

Leah laughed with me and she really was very pretty; Native American descent, I presumed. "I know right? He spends more time in the shower and getting ready than any girl I've ever met."

I laughed harder, blocking out any questions I may have had regarding how exactly she knew how much time my brother spent in the shower. Sam was right, no matter how old we got, it would never be okay for me to hear about his sex life – ever.

"Why is it that females always bond by turning the men in their lives to the butt of their jokes?" Sam's voice asked. He had walked out of his room to join us and this time he was fully clothed in a T-shirt and jeans. His hair was still wet, so I assumed that he had taken so long because he'd been in the shower.

Leah and I looked at each other and shrugged. "I guess because it's just so easy brother dear," I replied. "Too easy sometimes."

"And yet you still never pass up any opportunities."

"Waste not, want not and all that."

Sam rolled his eyes at my response and sat down on the couch opposite me, pulling Leah down next to him. He obviously didn't want her to leave and I had no problem with her staying anyway. She seemed like a likeable enough girl and I would have plenty of time to talk to my big brother throughout the weekend. Besides, I wanted to get to know this important part of my brother's life.

"What are you doing here squirt?" Sam asked. "Apart from trying your best to embarrass me in front of my girlfriend?"

I suppressed a grin at the way Leah's eyes shone with excitement at Sam's words. I could empathise; it was one thing you saying that you were someone's girlfriend, but it really was quite another when they willingly described you as such to someone important to them. Maybe it was a girl thing and maybe it was a little pathetic, but it really did make a difference.

"Can't a sister just come and visit her older brother because she missed him?" I asked, innocence lacing every word that came out of my mouth. Of course Sam didn't buy it, but he chose to not say anything else.

The three of us talked for a little while, with me and Leah doing most of the talking. It seemed as if she was just as curious about me as I was about her. Sam didn't really interject too much until one or both of us revealed something to the other about him that he didn't want getting out. They were a good couple, Leah and Sam. She was far more confident and outgoing than my brother was, but she was also serious in a way that he had never been. Their ease with each other was apparent from the moment they were in the same room and the youth of their relationship was evident in their playful manner. It seemed as if I was destined to have happy couples being rubbed in my face for the next few days – just to hammer home the fact that I was no longer in a happy couple. Or even an unhappy one.

The conversation stopped when Leah declared that she had to get to work just after one. She said her proper goodbye to my brother on the other side of the apartment door – thank god – and called out to me that she hoped to see me again before I left. Sam returned with a small smile playing on his lips and mischief in his eyes – I didn't even want to think about what the hell had put either of those expressions on his face; I don't think my poor brain could handle it.

"So?" Sam asked without too much preamble as he walked back into the living room area. "Are you going to tell me what exactly it is you're doing here Bella?"

"Anyone would think you weren't glad to see me," I answered. I did want to tell him about everything, but I was a _little_ stung by the way he hadn't expressed any sort of joy that I had flown here to visit him. Okay, so my timing sucked big time and I had obviously interrupted something, but I very rarely saw him and his girlfriend did say that he wanted to see more of me. Well, he certainly wasn't acting like that now.

Sam sighed and came over to sit on the arm of the chair I was occupying. "You know I'm happy to see you," he assured me. "You're such a drama queen sometimes Bella. I just want to know why you look like you haven't slept in about a week."

I looked up at him and saw genuine concern in his eyes. Did I really look that bad? I knew I'd looked better, but I had been through an emotional wringer twice in the space of about a week. I didn't know anyone that would come out of that and still look like a human being.

"I am tired," I admitted. "I haven't really been sleeping too much since I got to New York."

"Is it work?"

I shook my head. Well, maybe it had been work that had kept me up some nights, but I was pretty sure that if I hadn't spent that time rehearsing with Edward, I would have just spent it trying to get to sleep and failing miserably.

"It's Mom," I finally admitted. "It's Jake. Hell, Sam it's everything." Much to my utter mortification, I suddenly burst out crying in the middle of my older brother's living room.

Way to unload on my poor, unsuspecting brother right?

*

**EPOV**

Jasper turned up on my doorstep at seven o'clock in the morning on Saturday much to both mine and Rosalie's chagrin. He must have caught the damn Red Eye from LA and although I should have been pleased to see my friend, having three hours of sleep can really affect a guy's social skills. I didn't even mumble a greeting as I let him inside the apartment, only stumbled to the couch that had become my bed whilst Rose was here and went back to sleep. Jasper could amuse himself for a couple of hours; he didn't need me to entertain him and I wasn't entirely sure I _could_ in the state I was in.

I woke up again to the sounds of chatter and the smell of bacon from the kitchen. I looked up at the clock on the wall and saw that I had gotten another three and a half hours from the time Jasper woke me up. I groaned; I was still tired, but ten thirty in the morning was a reasonable enough time to be woken up. I padded into the kitchen hoping that they had also brewed some coffee because if they wanted any kind of conversation from me right now, they were going to have to supply me with caffeine. I plopped down on a stool next to Rosalie and was quickly handed a mug of steaming black coffee by my early morning guest. Well, at least he'd somewhat made up for his appearance this morning.

"You look like shit Ed." Rosalie's greeting was as charming as always.

I just yawned in response and took a sip of my too-hot coffee. It was okay for Rosalie. Quite apart from not seeming to need as much sleep as the rest of us mere mortals, she was lying down on a very comfortable mattress instead of a rather lumpy couch and she hadn't been woken up at seven this morning by Jasper's unannounced arrival. Rosalie had hour earlier than I had anyway because she hadn't had to make up her bed after Carlisle and Esme left around three thirty this morning. It wasn't that I minded Rose taking my bed – I would never have had her sleeping on the damn sofa – but I was allowed to feel bitter about it when she was giving me shit for looking less than my best.

"Sorry about waking you up so early man," Jasper apologised as he put a plate of pancakes and bacon in front of my face. I obviously had to choice but to let it go; I wasn't going to hold a grudge when food was involved. I mumbled something akin to this, but I don't think it got through the mouthful of pancake that I was currently chewing.

Jasper didn't seem to mind that what was coming out of my mouth wasn't at all comprehensible to any human being. Instead, he just turned around and started fixing a plate up for himself. If I had known that Jasper could cook breakfast foods so well, I may have invited him over to our apartment more often in the mornings – not that I'd invited him here this early to begin with.

"What are you doing here anyway Jazz?" Rosalie asked in between mouthfuls of French toast. "Shouldn't you be in bed with your new girlfriend?"

"Alice doesn't know I'm here actually," Jasper admitted. "I thought it would be a nice surprise for her."

I looked at him carefully as he said the words and there wasn't anything in his tone or in his face that would have caused me to think there was any other reason that he had shown up at my apartment instead of hers this morning. However, I got the same kind of feeling that Jasper was holding something back. It was a familiar feeling whenever we talked, but it had grown more ever since that phone call yesterday.

"Couldn't she have had her surprise at seven this morning?" I asked, only half joking. I was willing to bet big money on two things: that Alice hadn't had a late a night as I'd had and that she would have been more than happy to see Jasper at such a god forsaken time.

"Don't worry about him being so grumpy," Rosalie cut in. "You know what he's like when he hasn't had his eight hours of beauty sleep." The shared a look. "Actors."

I scowled as they shared a laugh at my expense; neither of them could ever let the fact that I was an actor go and they often took easy shots. I guess if I hadn't been in my own shoes, I would have made fun of me too – I mean I was one of maybe a million people in LA at the moment trying to get my big break; I was such a cliché. I didn't mind being a cliché the majority of the time because I was doing something I genuinely loved, but when my friends kept teasing me about it, it was kind of hard not seeing it from their point of view a little. I wasn't _ashamed_ of being an actor per se; it was more that I knew what kind of connotations that words had with people and it was _that _which I was very conscious about.

"Need I remind you that it's because of my job that you two are here right now – rent free." Yes, that's right I was throwing it in their face that they were staying in an apartment that a film studio was paying for because I was _acting_ in a film that they were making. It was a low blow, but it was one of the only responses I could think of right now to get them to end the teasing before it really started; Jasper and Rosalie were quite a double act when they really got into it.

Rosalie scoffed at that. "Honestly Edward you get your knickers in such a twist for absolutely no reason. You know we're just pulling your bloody leg."

"Have you actually become _more English_ whilst you've been away Rosalie?" It was Jasper that voiced the question, but it had come to my mind as soon as she finished talking. Rose hadn't exactly adopted an American accent like many of the British actors that relocated to America, but there were usually fewer English colloquialisms in her vocabulary. I hadn't noticed it too much last night, but in the harsh light of day, she was definitely speaking in a different manner.

Rosalie shrugged. "I can't help it. People always revert back when they go home. I bet you sound like you've married your cousin at fourteen when you go back home Jasper."

I was trying to swallow the last bite of fluffy pancake when she'd said that and coupled with the laughter that was bursting forth from within me, I ended up choking. Jasper's southern accent wasn't at all strong, but there were glimpses of a boy brought up in one of the southern states. It was also quite apparent in his mannerisms, although that must have been because of his parents rather than the place he himself had grown up because he had moved when he was only five.

"Oh now the claws come out and the stereotypes come to play?" Jasper faked offended and indignant fairly well.

Rosalie smirked at him. "Hon, you should know that my claws are never retracted."

"Too right," I agreed. It didn't really matter that it was muttered under my breath, Rosalie not only had super human hearing, but she was also right next to me; she shot me a withering glare. I just looked at her, no longer scared by her bark – her bite was much, much worse anyway. Suddenly her expression changed and there was definite mischief twinkling in her sky blue eyes.

"You should be nicer to me Ed," she said, her voice sickly sweet. Shit. Rosalie being sharp and sarcastic was something I could deal with – something I had ample experience with in fact. Rosalie being 'sweet' was something all together more dangerous; after all, people always feared the unknown.

I took the bait. "And why is that?"

"I made nice with your shiny, not so new friend Bella last night," she informed me.

Oh holy crap. "What exactly does you 'making nice' involve Rose?" I used my fingers to replace the quotation marks that I would have put around the phrase. It didn't bode well for me that Rosalie had said something to Bella, whatever that something may have been. It also didn't bode well that Jasper was now leaning forward towards Rose and was listening intently about what she had to say. I hadn't told Jasper that I hadn't told Rosalie about the underlying reason for my dislike of his crazy girlfriend, but I most definitely _did not_ want her to know. I had explained the mark on my face away yesterday as something that happened during a particularly intense rehearsal scene. In truth, there wasn't a single scene in the film where Bella actually had to slap me, but Rose hadn't read the entire thing and she would never know. Unless Jasper told her of course...which he may.

Rosalie shrugged and continued to drink the orange juice like nothing in the world was wrong and she wasn't trying to annoy the hell out of me. "I just apologised to her is all," she told me. "I've kind of been a little bit of a...shall we say a little bit _hesitant_ to befriend her, but I saw last night that you two were good friends and she was nice – fun even. I decided to get over myself."

Well, colour me shocked. I think Rose just willingly admitted that she had made a mistake. Where the hell was a camera when you needed to record a historical moment? I felt slightly disorientated.

Then Jasper ruined it all to hell with the next words out of his mouth. "Is this the same Bella whose boyfriend caught you sleeping in her apartment on Wednesday?"

Rosalie's head spun fast so that she was once again facing me, but I saw it in slow motion. I had known what Jasper was going to say as soon as the first word has left his mouth, but I could do nothing to stop it. If I'd changed the subject and interrupted him she would have seen it and would have asked what the hell was going on. It was inevitable really; I should have told Jasper that our conversation went no further than his ears. Now, I was facing Rosalie's suspicious and triumphant face with absolutely no choice but to tell her the truth.

"You slept with her?!" Rosalie's voice was incredulous, but there was also a hint of something else that I couldn't gauge; it was either pride or disappointment.

"No!" I shook my head to emphasise the point. "I fell asleep on her living room floor after we'd spent half the night rehearsing." Okay, that was slightly exaggerated. We had spent several hours together and only two of them had actually been spent rehearsing, but somehow I don't think that version of events would have supported my story much.

"But her boyfriend caught you?"

I glared at Jasper who at least had the sense to look apologetic at the scene that he'd caused. He cleared away the plates that Rosalie and I had been using and set about washing them so that he would stay well out of the line of fire. Some friend; he gets me into the fire and doesn't want to do a thing to get me out of it.

"He came into the apartment the morning after I'd fallen asleep, yes," I corrected. "However, he didn't _catch_ me because there was nothing to catch Rose. It was a completely innocent situation. Bella and I are just friends."

Rose scoffed. "I hate to break it to you Edward, but the only reason you two are 'friends'," she used the finger quotations to mock me, "is because the girl has a boyfriend."

The words were out of my mouth in my defence before I could really think about their long-term consequences. "Actually, she doesn't and we're still just friends."

Jasper broke the plate in his hands and Rosalie's eyes nearly popped right out of her head. I wanted to put my head through the counter top right now. I couldn't believe I was so fucking stupid. There was no way in hell that Rosalie would have found out about Jacob and Bella had I not told her about it. There was also no worse context to put their break-up in other than the one I just had. I had made it very easy for Rose – and anyone else really – to jump to the completely wrong conclusion.

"She broke up with her boyfriend?" Rosalie had managed to shut her open mouth and simultaneously prevent her eyeballs from falling out of their sockets.

I wanted to nod in confirmation, but forced my head to stay still – she was getting no more rope by which she could hang me with. "I'm not talking about this with you Rosalie," I told her. "It's none of our business."

I stood up and headed to my room announcing that I was going to take a shower, knowing that once the door was closed, they would start talking about me and the whole Bella thing. They would exchange information like fourteen-year old high school gossips and come up with theories that they would then spend the entire day trying to prove. It was ridiculous really; I didn't understand why in this day and age it should be suspicious for a man to be friends with a woman without wanting to get her into bed. Rosalie, especially, should have known that men and women could be friends without anything happening. After all we'd been friends for years and nothing had ever happened between us. I knew that Rosalie was attractive, just like I knew Bella was. The only difference was that I found Bella attractive whereas I only saw that Rosalie was to other people. Was that important? I didn't believe it to be so. It didn't mean that I wanted to sleep with her. Did it? There was a hesitation in my mind as I asked myself that question. Did I want to sleep with Bella?

I tried to look at the issue objectively. I had accepted that I found Bella attractive – I was alive after all – I had accepted this fact and learned to deal with it. I had even gone so far as taking something positive from it. I liked spending time with Bella, but then anyone would. She was funny and quick and very easy to just share the same space with. I didn't _actively_ think about sleeping with Bella, but I was a man and I did find her attractive – didn't that automatically mean that I _would_ sleep with her given the chance? Normally, if it was _anyone _else, I would have said yes. The math was simple and 1+1 really did equal 2. However, this math wasn't nearly as simple; not when it involved Bella. I could see that in any other given circumstance, with any other girl, I would say yes, I did want to sleep with her. Yet there was something about this particular girl that mean I couldn't think of her that way. Maybe it was her age or maybe it was the fact that we were starring in a movie together, but I couldn't let myself think of Bella like that even though everything told me I should be. The disturbing thing though, was that I couldn't completely deny it. I couldn't categorically say that I absolutely did _not_ want to sleep with Bella Swan.

*

Neither Rosalie nor Jasper brought up the subject of Bella again for the rest of the day, which suited me just fine. Obviously I had a lot of shit to work through regarding Bella and I wasn't entirely sure that I wanted to do it at all. At the moment, I was enjoying our friendship and I didn't want to complicate that or make that awkward by digging into something that wasn't even an issue right now. Instead, we spent the day just wandering around New York. Jasper hadn't been here since 9/11 and so we made the trip to ground zero. He had seemed extremely sombre at the site, much more so than any normal person would be, but I assumed that was just how Jasper was; he had always been more emotive than the average person.

The strange thing I found about spending the day with my friends was that Jasper hadn't once mentioned Alice, nor had he left to go to her. We spent the evening at a bar in Brooklyn that was showcasing some local musical talents. There were a couple of bands that stood out a mile and I had no doubt that in a couple of year's time I would be listening to their music blaring through my I-pod headphones. In the many hours we spent together Jasper didn't say Alice's name once and that was extremely unusual behaviour given that he had spent the past month talking about her incessantly. I had attempted to ask him when he was going to see her, but he brushed off my question with a joke about my trying to get rid of him. He obviously wasn't giving anything up and that was raising my suspicions further about what the hell was going on with him.

Rosalie didn't exactly share my concern about Jasper's sudden appearance on my doorstep after having flown across the country.

"He's here to surprise his new girlfriend," she repeated as we deposited a rather drunk Jasper onto the pull out couch that I had slept on the night before. "What more is there to ask?" She was already walking towards the kitchen as I made sure that Jasper was lying on his side in case he vomited, which was a very real possibility given the amount of alcohol he had consumed. Jasper could usually handle his drink fairly well, but the sheer volume of whisky and beer that he had been drinking all night had eventually gotten to him. His drinking pattern tonight was yet another red flag about his behaviour.

"How about why he isn't surprising her yet?" I questioned, following her.

Rose shrugged, taking a big gulp of water in order to try and stave off the hangover in the morning. "He's probably just getting some time in with us so that when he spends the rest of his time trailing her around, we won't give him shit for it." Her explanation was simple and made some sort of sense, but there was something still not sitting right with me about Jasper's being here. My scepticism must have shown because Rosalie exhaled noisily and rolled her eyes at me as she walked past towards my bedroom. "You're just finding something else to worry about because it's too quiet around here Edward."

I followed her into my bedroom. Jasper had assured us that he wouldn't be staying in my apartment the entire time he was in New York. It wasn't as if I didn't want him to, but there was no way in hell that all three of us would fit in an apartment designed for one person. Tonight, I would be sharing my own bed with Rose whilst Jasper's drunken ass occupied my couch. Rose and I had shared a bed many times before, but we hadn't done it for years – ever since we became 'real' adults. I didn't know where Jasper would be staying for the rest of the time he was here, but somehow, I didn't think it would be with Alice.

Rosalie was in the bathroom that adjoined the bedroom obviously getting ready to turn in for the night. I looked at the alarm clock beside the bed and couldn't believe that I had once again stayed up until the early hours of the next morning. I was thankful that tomorrow was Sunday and I had absolutely nowhere to be and nothing to do; I desperately needed a good night's sleep before the second week of rehearsals started. I got changed for bed myself whilst Rose was busy in the next room, grabbing a pair of pyjamas and a shirt. Normally I slept in boxers and nothing else, but I doubted that Rosalie would appreciate that too much, so I would just have to bear the heat and put some real clothes on. She emerged a couple of minutes after I had already settled on the left side of the bed – the side I preferred to sleep on.

"What do you think you're doing?" Rose asked as soon as the bathroom door opened.

"I thought I was going to sleep."

"Not on my side of the bed."

Rosalie and I liked to sleep on the same side of a bed and we'd had this argument many times before. Normally, I would just give in and let her sleep on the left, but this was the first bed that we'd shared that I could rightly call _mine_ and so surely I had claims as to which side I should have.

"It's my bed Rose," I pointed out without opening my eyes. "That means all the sides it has are my sides. I will, however, let you sleep on the right side, you know, because I'm kind and giving like that."

I felt her sit down next to me, on the edge of the left side. "I'm the guest Edward," she argued. "If you were any kind of gentleman, you'd offer me this side."

I would not let her win this one. It was my bed, I was tired and I got here first. "Didn't you hear that chivalry died with the women's movement Rosalie?"

Her frustrated groan was a sign that I'd won this one, but I doubted that I would win anything again with her for a very long time. Still, I could enjoy the victory in my sleepy haze as I felt her weight leave my side and in the next moment settle down on the opposite side. She made quite hard work of getting in on the right side too and had my eyes been opened, I was sure that I would have seen her stomp about and pout whilst she walked around the bed. However, I only heard the noises and the little puffs of breath that she let out to tell me in no uncertain terms that she was not happy about this little arrangement. I couldn't help the chuckle that escaped me, which she heard judging by the way she punched my arm when she was finally settled and the lights had gone out.

My eyes opened in surprise at the force behind it. She was obviously just more than a little annoyed that I hadn't caved and given her the side of the bed. "Violence solves nothing you know," I told her.

"No, but it makes me feel better," she told me.

I rolled my eyes even though she couldn't see me in the dark. I knew that right now it's wasn't because she was sleeping on the right side of the bed that pissed her off; it was because I hadn't caved. Sometimes Rosalie could be such a brat when she wanted to be.

I couldn't help but rub it in when she was in one of these moods – we seemed to bring out both the best and the worst in each other. "Well sleeping on this side of the bed makes me feel better."

She punched me again and this time we both burst out laughing. There was something about being childish with your best friend that was funny, whatever time of day or night and however old you may be. We carried on laughing for several minutes until neither of us could breathe properly or remember what the hell had been so funny in the first place.

"I named him," she whispered in the dark after the sounds of our rather hysterical laughter had long died down.

I didn't even have to ask who she was talking about and I didn't know what to say in response to her revelation. I didn't know until that very moment that she had never named the son that she would never know, but when I thought about it, I guess she had never needed to. There wasn't exactly a _body_ to bury when she had lost the baby and the stone that she had placed in Brighton had been nothing more than a reminder that he had existed.

"I called him Anthony," she told me and my eyes snapped open. In the dark, I couldn't really see Rosalie's face, but I could see the way her eyes shone with tears. I was staggered; honoured beyond belief that she would see fit to call her lost son after me.

"Rose," I started, unsure of how I could express the emotions I had within me right now. I didn't feel worthy of the tribute she had given me.

Her watery eyes smiled at me in the darkness. "You're the best man I know Edward," she told me. "I could never have gotten through the last five years of my life without you and I didn't want my son –" Her voice caught and I could tell that the water in her eyes was no longer able to be held back. "I wanted his name to mean something; I wanted to give him something good."

The tears were now undoubtedly streaming down her face and I heard her sniff. I moved a little closer to her and pressed a kiss into her hair.

"Thank you Rosalie," I whispered.

* * *

A/N: Touching moment, huh? Edward's spidey senses are tingling with Jasper's appearance, but Rosalie's just not bothered. Edward's getting more and more secretive about Bella. Why? They're just friends right? As for Bella, she knows something is up with Esme, but does she really need to be digging into that when she has so much stuff to deal with already? It's exhausting isn't it? Thank you everyone for reading...I hope you all enjoy it. An extra thank you to all who review, especially all those that do it regularly...your reviews make me smile when I read them.


	18. Chapter 18 Carried Away

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves. **

**Chapter 18: EPOV**

Sunday passed by quite uneventfully considering all the drama that had gone on the previous week. I finally got a decent night's rest and woke up at around one in the afternoon to find myself completely alone in the apartment. There was a note on the small coffee table in the lounge that informed me that Jasper had gone to 'run errands' and Rosalie had gone shopping. Neither of them would be back until sometime in the evening, which meant that I would have to amuse myself for the next several hours. The only thing that I was really interested in doing was reading the script and seeing if the writers had made any changes to it. I got a new copy of the script on Saturday, but hadn't yet had the opportunity to have a read through it, so I decided now would be a perfect time. I thought about going to Bella's apartment to see if she would like to read the script over with me, but then I remembered that she had gone to visit her brother this weekend. She had said that her flight was early Saturday morning and I didn't think that she would yet be back if she only actually left yesterday. I ignored the disappointment that had come with the realisation that Bella wasn't home and instead focused on the fact that it would be better if I read the script alone before I rehearsed it with anyone.

It was around five in the afternoon when I finished reading and re-reading the script. They had made some changes to the first scene that we had rehearsed on Friday and cut out the second one completely. There was a new scene near the end of the film and also one in the middle, which I was uncertain about. I felt as if the added scene could go one of two ways: either it would be fantastic and capture everyone, or have the potential to slow down an already long film. We wouldn't know until we tried it of course and it was pretty much up to Bella and I to deliver and make it come alive. No pressure there then. Thinking about Bella made me want to call her, but I stopped myself. She wouldn't have gotten the script and she was somewhere away from work so I doubted that she would have appreciated me interrupting her to talk to her about it. I decided that I should get out of bed and take a shower before Rosalie came home and started lecturing me on not having yet changed out of my pyjamas at five in the afternoon.

I was glad of my decision to make it seem like I hadn't been in bed all day when Rosalie came in through the door about an hour after I got out of the shower. She had several bags in her hands and a smile on her face; obviously she'd had a good day. We went out to dinner without waiting for Jasper to come back from whatever 'errands' he had been running all day. Rose had told me that he hadn't been in the apartment when she woke up, but she figured that he was probably just with Alice now.

"It'll probably be the last we see of him until we all get back to LA," she said. "I really should meet this girl that has Jasper all in a twist."

I smiled, wondering what Rosalie and Alice would really make of each other given enough time together. I didn't think that they would immediately get along; for one thing Alice hated me and Rosalie was very protective. Just like I wouldn't like anyone that hated her on principle, she wouldn't make nice with someone so obviously hostile towards me. Loyalty. Rosalie had that quality by the bucket load.

Still, Jasper's non-appearance and completely lack of communication bothered me a little. It wasn't like I needed to keep a track of everywhere he went and everything he did, but I couldn't get over the feeling that there was something going on with the guy. I didn't have too much to go on other than the fact that he was just being more _Jasper_ than normal, which was the stupidest thing in the world, I was aware. Maybe Rose was right, I wasn't content unless there was something dramatic going on in someone's life that I knew...so much so that I was now trying to construct dramatic instances in my head.

*

I was standing outside of Bella's apartment door at six on Monday morning, wondering whether I should knock. I had had no contact with Bella since she left my apartment early Saturday morning and so I didn't know whether she would actually be here or not. I assumed that she would be given that we had to be on the set in an hour's time. We only had two weeks of rehearsal time left and we were all told that everything would be kicked up a gear or two now as we all scrambled to get ready for filming. She took the decision from my hands when she opened the door and actually ran into me.

"Ooof," we both said as we stumbled backwards. Luckily for me, Bella was barely a hundred pounds. I only went back a couple of steps, but she was flat on her ass before I could come forward and catch her. She blinked several times before looking up and catching my eyes; we burst out laughing.

"Need a hand up?" I offered when I'd stopped laughing.

Bella smiled up at me and stretched out her arm so that I could pull her up onto her feet. "Thanks Edward. I was just about to run up to your apartment."

I nodded. "So that's why you mowed me down. You were just eager to see me."

Bella rolled her eyes and moved back so that she was no longer within reach and I had to let go of her or step towards her. I did the former. "If anyone's eager to see anyone Edward it's the person who's standing at the other's doorstep at six in the morning." Her lips turned up into a knowing smirk as she looked her me with a challenge in her eyes.

I shrugged, trying not to let the fact that I was embarrassed as hell right now show. "I was just doing my job as your friend and making sure you weren't late for the car," I told her. "After all, we have a long day ahead of us. Did you read the new changes yet?" I personally thought that the change in subject was quite smooth, but the look that Bella gave me before she shut her apartment door behind her told me otherwise.

"I got the script just before I left on Saturday morning actually," she told me as we started walking downstairs in order to meet the car. "I read through it a couple of times, but I don't have all the lines of the new scenes memorised yet. I was going to call you last night to see if you wanted to go over the scenes together."

I stopped and looked at her curiously. "I never got that call."

"I didn't make it in the end," she told me, looking back. She had kept on walking when I stopped. "It was pretty late when I got back in and I didn't know whether you were asleep or whether you had...er...whether you were busy." She started to walk again.

I stood staring at her back for a moment wondering what the hesitation had been about, but deciding to just leave it alone. "Don't hesitate to call," I told her when I finally caught up with her in the entrance hallway. "Seriously, we're both here to do a job and if you want to rehearse at any given time then just call."

Bella nodded and mumbled something under hear breath that I couldn't quite hear because at that very second the car drove into the driveway and stopped right in front of us. I opened the door for her to get in before going around the other side to get in myself, only to find that she'd already scooted over so that I could have gotten in after her. She returned the smile that I gave her then slid over to the side she was originally on so that I could sit down. For the first part of the journey, neither of us spoke too much, but there was a whole lot of looking at the person and then looking away if they turned and saw us. The first few times this happened I thought it was just me, but then I turned to look ahead and caught Bella quickly turning her head to look out of her window, her cheeks showing just a hint of colour as she did. It was like we were two pre-pubescent teens who couldn't speak to a member of the opposite sex yet. The tenth time it happened, I started laughing because we were both being utterly ridiculous. After having spent an entire week spending hours upon hours with each other, we were now acting like we didn't know each other. Bella joined in after looking at me like I'd lost my mind for a couple of minutes. Soon we were laughing so hard at ourselves and the behaviour we were exhibiting that we were clutching our sides and practically rolling around on the seats. I'm pretty sure that the driver, Alec, thought we were insane.

"So how was your weekend?" I asked after we had finished laughing off the uneasy tension that hap wrapped itself around us since we got into the car.

"It was good," she told me sincerely. "You were right about getting the cobwebs out and Seattle really is a beautiful place. I'm not surprised that Sam's more or less chosen to live there instead of LA even when school isn't in session."

I knew that she hadn't meant it to be anything other than an observation, but there was hurt in her voice that she couldn't quite disguise. However, now was not the time to go digging around in her family issues; I wanted to keep the conversation light so that there wouldn't be the discomfort from earlier. "What's he majoring in?"

"Economics," she told me, her voice and her face confused. "He changed from majoring in Mathematics to majoring in economics. I just think he's particularly masochistic."

I grinned at that. "That's exactly what I thought when Carlisle decided to double major in biology and chemistry in undergrad," I told her. "I don't know what the hell he was thinking or why the hell he did it, but it worked for him."

Bella turned to me fully opening her mouth to speak, but then shutting it again before there were any actual words expressed. I waited for her to say whatever it is that she was hesitant to, doing nothing but just turning my attention to her and trying to convey the fact that she could say anything she wanted to me.

"Do you ever regret not doing the whole college thing?" she asked finally.

I had sort of expected the question with the conversation we'd been having the hesitation before she asked. I answered as honestly as I could. "Sometimes," I confessed. "Sometimes I wish that I was a little bit more like my brother and millions of other people out there. It would have been nice, I think, to have gone to school, made friends and not have to leave them in three months when shooting finishes."

Bella was nodding all the way throughout my admission. "I kind of feel like I've missed out on a huge journey of self-discovery or something," she told me. "I mean I didn't go to High School like a normal teenager and I'm not going to college..." she trailed off and her eyes took on a less focused look.

I kind of had some idea what she meant, but my experiences were so different to hers. I had gone to high school and though it wasn't the typical high school experience, I did find out a lot about who I was and where I fit in with other people my age. I guess Bella had never had that. She had been a kid in a world of grown-ups and she'd had to learn quite fast how to be mature and how to handle responsibility. High school, more than anything, was a time to make mistakes, a time of trial and error. Bella had to do those things in the public eye and that must have been very tough indeed; I knew that there were some things I did in high school that I hoped would never become public knowledge.

Still, I didn't think it was necessarily the best, or the right, thing for everyone. If Bella had already found what she was supposed to do then why waste four years of her life roaming the halls of a building that could never fulfil her needs. People found themselves and their purpose in different ways and if Bella had found a way that worked for her, who the hell's to say she would have even liked being in a regular school?

"You know, journeys of self-discovery aren't something that you do just once in your life Bella," I told her. "I think that people are always trying to find out who they are and if that person fits in with who they used to be or who they want to be in the future. We all change so much that a little bit of re-evaluation now and then must be in order."

Bella looked at me with a mixture of confusion, surprise and something I couldn't quite understand; annoyance? "Why is it that you always seem to have the answers to my life's problems Mr. Cullen?" she asked.

I shrugged, smiling at her assumption that I had _any _answers at all. "I have nearly five years on you," I told her, cringing a little on the inside at the reminder of just how young she really was. "I'm bound to have gone through the same sort of things."

Bella bit her bottom lip and looked out of the car window, a sign that she was thinking about something she didn't want to be thinking about and about to say something she wasn't sure she should. "You make it sound like five years is a lifetime," she commented. "You're not that much older than me you know Edward Cullen."

I wasn't that much was true. Just because I was five years older than she was didn't mean that I knew more about life than she did, but it did mean that I knew what it was like to be her age and to ask the same questions about life and myself. There was also another aspect of her comment that I didn't want to dwell on; that I couldn't really afford to start thinking about. Five years may not seem like a lot, but Bella was barely legal and she was still involved with someone; I couldn't start seeing the age difference between us as inconsequential because then maybe I'd see everything else the same way.

"Maybe not," I told her, dragging my eyes away from the back of her head to look at the lot that we were about to enter. "But five years older is enough." I didn't know who the hell I was trying to convince, nor did I know exactly what I was trying to convince them of, but the words made it from my head to my mouth and then out before I even had chance to really think about what would happen when I said them.

The car had stopped and I'd gotten out before Bella got a chance to respond. I didn't know whether I was running away from what she would have said or just running away from the situation that had arisen, completely unbidden, between us. It hadn't noticed it too much until this morning, but recently the easy companionship that Bella and I had always shared was punctuated with an awkward tension. Looking back on it, I would say it began when I was in London, but it had been getting much more frequent now that we were both in New York. I would guess that it was because we'd now gone over a hurdle in our friendship; we had shared a lot of personal things with each other in our different ways. I had learned a lot more about Bella in the week that we'd been here than I had in nearly a month of knowing her. There had been an obvious change in our relationship since we'd gotten here and maybe this strange discomfort that we were feeling was just a reflection of that. We would get back to our effortless friendship soon enough.

I was on set minutes before Bella was. In fact, she was so far behind me that I began to think she'd gotten lost on the short walk here. I had already been in a conversation with Ben and Mike for about five minutes when she turned up walking side by side with Alice. Well, at least she hadn't gotten lost. She didn't see me looking at her, but Alice certainly did and when her eyes met mine there was an accusation behind them that I now understood. I didn't look away from her like I normally would have done. Now that I knew exactly what was behind her hard stares and not so friendly glares, I didn't want to give her anymore ammunition by acting guilty. I had nothing to be guilty about anyway; Bella was just a friend and I hadn't done a damn thing to compromise that. I hadn't treated Bella any different to how I would have treated anyone in the case – had I spent any time with anyone else in the cast...which I hadn't.

Finally, it was Alice that looked away and back to Bella who looked like she was telling the shorter girl something. I turned back to my own conversation about whether or not it would be a good idea for Ben to ask Angela out. I didn't want to be having this conversation at all; I was neither female nor close enough to Ben to be able to offer him advice on this matter – or willing to. However, Mike seemed to be extremely keen to share his experience of dating members of the cast he was working with, which – if he was to be believed – was rather extensive.

"What do you have to lose really?" Mike was asking Ben now. "It's one date."

"If she says no then we have three months of working together and it'll be awkward as hell," Ben replied. "If she says yes and we have a horrible time we have three months of working together and it'll be awkward as hell."

I laughed at that. Ben was obviously extremely nervous about asking Angela out and in being so nervous, he couldn't see that there was very little chance she would say no. I was a guy and even I could see that there potentially something happening there. "What if she just says yes and you two have a good date?" I hypothesised. "It has been known to happen."

Mike laughed as Ben looked at me both embarrassed and a little annoyed that I was poking fun at his problem. Seriously though, it was a rather ridiculous problem to be discussing. I don't think I'd felt the need to my friends about asking a girl out since I was in high school. Then again, I guess I hadn't hung around with a bunch of guys since high school either.

"You think she'll really say yes?" Ben asked after Mike had stopped laughing.

Mike and I rolled our eyes at each other; Ben was apparently completely oblivious. "She'll say yes," I assured him. Mike nodded in agreement.

Ben seemed very pleased by our reassurance and he was so bolstered by it that his mind had eased enough to think about something else besides asking Angela out on a date. "So, what's with you and Jess?"

I resisted the urge to groan and walk away from the conversation; I didn't want to appear rude. Truth was I was suddenly remembering exactly why I hadn't spent any time away from the set with anyone other than Bella. I didn't want to talk about the gossip that was going on around here. I wasn't a member of the tabloid press and nor was I a twelve year old middle-schooler. I just wanted to come here, do my job and then go home where I had better things to do with my time than dissect my cast mates' love lives. However because I had no excuse to walk the hell away from this conversation, I had to stay put and watch as Mike tried – though not too hard – to not look too smug when talking about his relationship with Jessica.

"It's nothing serious," he told us. "It's just a little bit of fun whilst we're in New York together."

I didn't say anything, but I sure as hell hoped that Jessica knew that was how Mike saw their relationship. I'm sure everyone in the world – male or female – had experienced the absolutely horrific situation of crossed wires. It didn't matter if neither of you had really communicated your desires well at all, it would always be the fault of whomever it was that didn't want a relationship. That was the unwritten rule of casual dating and for those who didn't know that, their learning curve would be vastly accelerated once they had a very unpleasant experience. I had mine when I was sixteen and ever since then it's been etched in my mind.

"It's a shame Bella isn't single," Mike was saying and suddenly I was ripped out of my teen memories by the tone of his voice. I found that my interest in this conversation had been lit.

"Why?" I asked in the most nonchalant manner I could manage as my mind raced with the several different meanings of his comment.

Mike looked at me with an eyebrow raised as if I shouldn't have asked such a stupid question. "Are you blind?" he asked. "That girl is smoking hot and she's cool as hell. Her boyfriend is one lucky bastard."

I liked this conversation even less now that we were suddenly talking about Bella. It wasn't like I could disagree with anything he said – it was all true, though I wouldn't exactly have put it in exactly the same manner he just did. Jacob was an incredibly lucky man to have Bella in his life and to have her love him, which I'm pretty sure he realised. The thing was, I neither wanted to talk about Bella like this nor hear her being talked about like this. If I heard people say this about her, I would only start thinking them about her and I had enough not exactly friendly thoughts about the girl to contend with thank you very much, I didn't need someone else to add more.

Luckily, Sue came to the rescue by calling everyone in the room to order. It looked as if it was time to get to work and I couldn't be more grateful for it. Being me right now was very confusing and was only becoming increasingly more so. Being Robert was very easy by comparison. The complexity of the character meant that I couldn't focus on my own feelings whilst I was being him; I couldn't think of a better escape from the thoughts that were forcing itself to the forefront of my mind.

*

_He had only seen her a few hours ago, but as she came into view in front of him he felt like he hadn't seen her in weeks, months even. The weight on his chest that he hadn't noticed before had eased as soon as he saw her smile at him. The realisation that this girl, this eighteen year-old girl, had turned his entire life upside down kept hitting him like a fresh wave even though he had known it from the first moment he had seen her almost two years ago. It seemed as if no matter how much time he spent looking at her and memorising every single feature of her face, every expression that she wore and every curve of her figure, he couldn't remember it well enough. It was never exact and he was always caught off-guard when he saw her again. He wondered if this feeling would ever go away, if the sudden swell of peace that appeared whenever she was anywhere near him would fade as they spent more time together and they got to know each other more. His heart told him no, but his mind was far more logical than that and tried to tell him that these feelings were due to hormones – nothing more; it would subside once he had gotten used to her._

_There was no verbal greeting exchanged before she wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself close to him so that she could feel his physical being. She had missed him acutely. It had been hard for her to leave him last night, not just emotionally, but physically. Her thoughts were a mess when he wasn't around and she felt as if she couldn't concentrate on anything. Everything was harder when she wasn't with him and she almost couldn't work out how she had functioned for the last eighteen years of her life until she had found him. It should have scared her, this feeling of dependence on another person, but when she looked into his eyes, she couldn't imagine life being any other way now. When she was in his arms like this, her feet inches from the ground as he straightened up, she found that she really didn't care. _

"_Hey," he breathed into her hair. He kissed the crown of her head before he set her down on the floor, his arms still around her waist._

"_Hello," she replied, leaning in to kiss him lightly on the lips. She pulled back and grinned at him before kissing him once more, this time for much longer. It didn't matter that they were in the middle of Grand Central and anyone might have seen them because when they were together nothing else existed. The world that kept on turning could go right ahead and leave them in the moment of time that they had created together; they probably wouldn't notice anyway._

_Kristen loved kissing him; she always had. She had been under the impression that the best kiss in a relationship was always the first one; the one where both of you are nervous and tentative, but the tension had built up so much that you can't do anything to contain the passion. In her previous experiences with guys, she would have agreed – the first kiss was the one that got your heart pumping faster than you thought possible and got you feeling as if you would pass out whether he placed his lips on you or not, just from the heady excitement of it all. With Rob though, everything was different. Every kiss felt different and yet the same. This kiss wasn't like their first – it was better. The fireworks just got more impressive and the world tilted from its axis just that little bit more every single time he placed his lips on hers, however brief the contact was._

_Finally, after an immeasurable amount of time, they both pulled apart, but only enough so that they could breathe and speak. "I missed you," Robert said, his breath heavy and his voice low. _

_Kristen grinned wider still. "Me too," she told him. "God, me too."_

_The tone in her voice struck a chord deep within Rob. He knew exactly what she meant without her having to say the words. It was really quite incomprehensible, how much he had missed her. He started laughing softly at the thought of how he had been restless on the train, willing it to go faster so that he could get to her faster._

"_What are you laughing about?" Kristen asked, confused by his change in mood._

"_I'm just amazed at how we can spend months without seeing each other, but when we do, we can't be apart for more than a few hours without being driven crazy," Rob answered. "It's insane."_

_Kristen smiled, agreeing with his observation. He was right. They had spent a lot of the two years since they had met apart and they had still managed to go on with their lives in a fairly normal fashion. She still went to school and hung out with her friends. He still performed, wrote songs and went on tour with his band. Yet, after spending a few hours with him last night, she had barely gotten any sleep and this morning, she had sat down at breakfast with her parents and spaced out completely. She had been watching the clock all day willing for time to just go faster, just this one time, just so she could see him again._

"_Addiction is an illness," she told him. _

_They had joked once, when they had met each other in the city eight months ago, that they were addicted to each other. Only it wasn't really a joke. It may have been said with humour, but there was definitely more than a grain of truth to the statement. Both of them felt the physical craving to see the other. Both of them felt the ache that was present whenever they hadn't spoken or seen each other in a while. It may not have any reasonable explanation, but neither of them could deny that it was there. _

"_I hope they never find a cure for this kind," Robert had said then and repeated again now. "I don't want to know what life is like if I didn't need you." That part was new, but also too close to home. He knew that their relationship was potentially dangerous and all sorts of unhealthy, but he never wanted his life to change. Everything about being with Kristen was like it was straight out of a dream he couldn't remember having. He had never asked for this, for her, but now that he had it, he realised that it had been everything he wanted. _

_Kristen felt pure joy rise up within her like it did every time Robert would say things that mirrored her own feelings about him. It wasn't really scary being so in over her head when it came to the man in front of her, but it certainly tripled the happiness she felt when he expressed the same emotions. The laughter bubbled up from within her and spilled forth from her lips, which caused him to smile down and kiss her lips softly, barely brushing them with his own. _

"_I'm sure there are RAA groups all over the world," Kristen told giggled when his lips ghosted over her cheeks. _

"_RAA groups?" he questioned, his breath washing her face with the smell of mint._

"_Robert Addicts Anonymous," she explained, turning her face so that her mouth caught his. She felt the grumble of his laughter from his chest as she nibbled on his lower lip. When her tongue flicked out to soothe the irritation that may have been left by her teeth his laughter turned into a groan instead._

"_We have to get out of here," he all but panted. _

"_Mmmmm," was her very eloquent reply._

_Robert pulled himself away from her with greater effort than should have been necessary. He looked into her green eyes and noticed that they were almost black with the lust that she was feeling. He was pretty sure that his blue ones were almost midnight in colour for exactly the same reason. He leaned into her so that he could whisper the words in her ear – that and so that he could inhale her glorious scent again. "Kris, if we don't get the hell out of this train station we're going to get arrested for lewd public acts."_

_His voice was rough and low in her ear and she felt excitement spread through her from the point his lips touched her ear; like a domino effect. She was tugging him by the arm and leading him out of the station and away from the crowds of people that saw nothing but two amorous youngsters too caught up in themselves to care that they were in the way of the very busy commuters of Manhattan. They came out onto the crowded streets of the city, blending into the crowd easily if not for the way they would momentarily stop and laugh as they wrapped their arms around each other and kissed briefly. They were both overwhelmed by the elation they felt now that they were back together again. Looking at them, it was hard to think that love didn't exist; hard to imagine that hate had a place in a world that held the simple, complete and happy adoration that shone from both of their eyes. They reminded people that passed and saw them that rainbows only came on rainy days and you couldn't appreciate the power of light until you had faced the darkness. The two lovers that danced happily together on the streets of one of the busiest cities in the world served as a reminder that hope would always exist because love was so very real. _

_*_

The scene was intense and it took me a while to snap out of it. When I looked at Bella's hand still in mine, I was still Robert and she was still Kristen. I intertwined our fingers together after the scene had been called to a stop, but it wasn't just me who was too caught up in the moment to notice Sue's yell. Bella squeezed my hand tighter and didn't resist as I pulled her closer to me. I was still the man who was so head-over-heels in love with a girl that he felt utterly at sea without her by his side. It wasn't until I was so close to Bella that I could see the warm chocolate of her eyes that I realised the scene was over. I stepped back and let go of her hand as he eyes widened at the sudden awareness of just how close we had been to each other. We looked at each other, shocked and confused about what had just happened and yet proud of the work we had done. We would not have had such a slow transition back into reality had we not been so deep into the scene; that had to mean that it was good.

"I don't want to keep saying this because your egos are bound to be big enough to fill the room if I do, but you two are just fantastic together," Sue praised, walking towards us from the other side of the room. "You have chemistry by the bucket load. I don't know what the hell it is that you're doing, but keep doing it until the end of filming at least."

I looked at Bella, but her eyes were fixed firmly on Sue and her mouth was pressed into a tight line. She didn't look too pleased with the praise that was being given to her right now. On the contrary, she looked kind of angry.

"How did that feel for you guys?" Sue asked, looking from me to Bella in eager anticipation of our answer. I really did like the way that she wanted our input on the scenes that we were rehearsing.

I glanced at Bella again to see if she was going to speak first, but she was now looking down at her feet, her face troubled in a way that confused the hell out of me. Did she not think it was good? Had I done something wrong? The scene had been changed a little over the weekend; there was far more physical intimacy and less dialogue in it now, but I personally thought that the changes had enriched the scene and the message behind it. The two people didn't need words to express their emotions to each other and the way that they were constantly touching each other supported the way that they craved the other one.

"I thought it felt really good," I told Sue honestly. "I think the scene works better now that there's less dialogue between the two of them."

Sue was nodding in agreement with me and I followed her gaze as it settled on Bella, who was still looking down at her feet; as if she felt the two pairs of eyes on her Bella looked up. She caught my eyes first and looked away to Sue immediately. I was shocked by the reaction Bella seemed to be having to me and I couldn't help but feel it was my fault even though I was pretty sure I hadn't actually done anything.

"It was great," Bella said to Sue now. "I agree with Edward. The dialogue slowed the scene down too much before. I don't feel like they need to exchange witty banter when the entire point of the scene is to show how they can't be apart for too long. Their constant touching and their almost giddy behaviour send that message much more clearly."

Sue beamed at the both of us. "Brilliant," she exclaimed. "It's always good when the two leads, the director, the writers and the producers are in agreement over a scene. Let's set up for the next one."

She was walking away before she had even finished shouting orders and when I turned around to talk to Bella, she was already in conversation with Alice. Was the girl avoiding me now? I was extremely confused. Did she think I'd over stepped the mark by holding onto her and bringing her closer even when the scene had ended? I couldn't control that; I was too deep into the moment to be able to snap back right away and if I wasn't mistaken, she had been lost in the moment too. I let out a deep breath and glanced her way once more before I walked away in the opposite direction to where she was. I guess I'd have to wait until the end of rehearsals to talk to her.

**BPOV**

God damn it!

I couldn't believe what had nearly happened at the end of that scene. It was perfectly okay to look up into Edward's eyes longingly, perfectly fine to kiss him with lust and passion, perfectly good to touch him with the affection and intimacy of a lover. Yes, that was all perfectly acceptable when action was called and Edward was no longer himself, but Robert. It was okay because as soon as Sue's voice called out, I was no longer Bella and I was supposed to be in love with the man in front of me. However, when Sue's voice sounded out again to end the scene, it was no longer acceptable to be drawn to Edward's body; it was no longer okay to stare into his eyes and wonder how the green that coloured his irises seemed to be in motion. It was definitely not okay to be looking at his lips and wondering what they would feel like when he wasn't in character, all the while inching closer to them. What was even worse was that I was doing all of this in a room full of people some of whom were friends with my boyfriend and were already more than a little suspicious about the nature of my relationship with Edward Cullen.

Fuck!!!

I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear my hair out and scream, but if I was honest with myself it may have had something to do with the fact that I had snapped out of my haze before I could get the answers to my questions rather than just pure frustration at my unacceptable behaviour. I couldn't look at Edward. I couldn't look him in the eyes after what had just happened because I didn't know what he would see in them. I had thought that this weekend would help me get my head together and force me to focus on what I considered priorities within my life. I had come back happy and much less conflicted than I had been in a long time. I had a plan. In fact, I had several plans; I had a plan to start fixing things with my Mom, I had a plan to try and be friends with Jacob again and I had a plan to stop blurring the lines between Edward and me.

Now all that was fucked and I didn't know what the hell to do about anything. If I was being really honest, it was all fucked this morning when I knocked Edward down at my front door. I blamed Sam. He was the one who had forced me to really examine my feelings, thoughts and motivations for everything and it had set into motion a train of thought that I couldn't shut off. Every time I looked at him, I was reminded what I had let myself finally feel and what I had admitted to Leah in a moment of female bonding. My visit to my older brother may have helped to put some problems into perspective for me, but it also kind of created a few more.

*

"_That's why you and Mom haven't spoken properly for years?" Sam asked, his voice held total surprise without a hint of disgust, which surprised the hell out of me. _

_I nodded, unable to say anything; he may have been able to speak to me without hating me, but I couldn't stop the shame from piercing my chest. I was too cowardly to really look at my brother and my eyes were darting from one place to another above his head._

"_Jesus Bella, when you mess up, you really mess up."_

_I was a little taken aback by the way he didn't sugar coat the severity of my misdeeds against our mother, but then again Sam was never one to hold back what he thought and my being his sister certainly didn't change that. I chanced a quick look at him and found that although he looked serious, he didn't look like he was judging me at all; well, he was the only one in the room that wasn't. _

"_Have you apologised?" Sam asked me pointedly._

_Shame crashed over me again as I moved my head to shake it. I shouldn't have entered into this conversation – it was making me feel worse than I did before I started talking to him. "I was literally stunned when she told me that she'd heard the conversation," I told him quickly, needing him to understand that I hadn't been in the right state of mind that afternoon. "I know it's not an excuse, but I didn't know that she'd heard it; I didn't mean for her to hear it. When Mom told me that was the reason she and I stopped speaking, I felt like the floor had given out beneath me. I couldn't make sense of anything. I was so ashamed and I felt so guilty that I-"_

"_You took the first plane to New York right?" Sam asked, but the expression on his face showed that it wasn't really a question. He knew me and he knew exactly what I would do given the set of circumstances he'd heard from me. The fact that I wasn't speaking told him all he needed to know. "You have to stop running away from all your problems Bella," he started lecturing. _

_I cut him off. "I know!"_

_Sam shook his head. "I don't think you do," he argued with me. "You've done it forever; probably why you took up acting in the first place. You see something that you don't like and you just leave or retreat into someone else. I don't think you've ever faced a problem head on."_

_I didn't know what to say; I couldn't come up with anything to refute what he was saying because there was no defence. It was hard to sit there and hear what my brother was saying, but I couldn't deny any of it. _

"_Instead of staying behind to tell Mom that you're sorry and that you shouldn't have said it, shouldn't even have _thought_ it, you actually leave the state." Sam's voice was incredulous and I could tell he was on the verge of really letting me have it. "Do you even know what kind of message that was sending to her Bella?" I shook my head. "You go to her and tell her that you want to repair whatever it is that's happened and then when she tells you the root of it all, you pack up and fly across the country. No apologies, no explanations, nothing."_

_The tears gathering in my eyes were born out of frustration and shame at what I'd done, not out of the fact that Sam was now practically yelling at me. I deserved everything he was saying; I was a horrendously selfish person and at the time I'd only been thinking about my own feelings. I was worried that my Mom couldn't forgive me. I was worried that she would hate me for the rest of her life. I had wanted to leave to try and run away from the shame and the hurt of what I'd done all those years ago. I hadn't thought about what it would do to her to have me just up and leave when we'd been talking about what had gone so wrong. I didn't think that she would need to hear an apology before we could do anything about repairing the remnants of our once close bond. I had been so focused on getting away for my own comfort and peace of mind that it didn't even enter my head that other people may have needed me to stay. _

"_Bella I love you and I'm pretty sure that Mom still loves you too, but you're going to have to grow the hell up and start facing your problems." Sam's voice had softened; probably as a reaction to the tears that were now streaming down my face. I didn't notice that he had moved from where he sat before until his face was close to mine. "I know it's hard and it probably is just easier to be someone else instead of facing your own reality, but that's how shit builds up and that's why people go into rehab. You don't want to end up like that do you?"_

_Laughter bubbled up through the tears at the last words he spoke. I shook my head. I wanted to tell him that I was trying to be better, that I was trying to face my problems instead of running away from them, but I couldn't get the words out yet. Instead, Sam took me in his arms and just hugged me while I cried. The last time I remembered him doing this for me was when I was four and our cat had died. I had loved that damn thing so much that I thought I would never be happy again when we buried it in our back yard. It may have been seconds, it may have been hours, but eventually the tears stopped and I could find my voice again._

"_What do I do Sam?" I asked him, my voice rough from the tears. "How do I make it right?"_

_Sam shrugged. "You have to start off saying you're sorry sis," he instructed. "Then everything else will fall into place."_

"_But what if it's too late? What if sorry just isn't enough this time?"_

_Sam looked at me for several long moments. "Bella it's never too late to say sorry, especially to parents. You just have to show Mom that you didn't mean the words she heard you say. You have to show her that she really is an important part of your life."_

_I nodded. That made sense. It wasn't just going to take words. I really had to work for my Mom's forgiveness, but after the hurtful things that she'd overheard could I expect anything else? She had given both Sam and I everything and I threw it back in her face for the approval of a boy that really had no idea about what was important in life. I had acted like everyone else that I didn't approve of now and though I didn't deserve my mother's forgiveness, I really hoped that I would earn it some time. _

"_Thanks Sam," I told him, grateful that he could lay it all out for me to see. "Sorry to lay this all on you. I bet you thought that you'd escaped it all by coming up here right?"_

"_I've learned over the years that you can't escape family," Sam told her. "They're a part of who you are."_

"_I'm sorry Sam," I said to him. My brother's issues with me had been revealed years ago, but I don't think I'd ever apologised for it. I had never thought that it was my fault; after all, I couldn't help who I was and how other people reacted to that. It never occurred to me that maybe I could apologise for the way his life was affected by my job, that maybe he would appreciate it even if it wasn't needed._

_He knew what I was talking about and he smiled at me, squeezing my hand. "You didn't need to say that, but thank you."_

"_It was long overdue," I admitted. He put an arm around me again and pulled me closer to him, but before the moment could get anymore family movie than it already had, he had me in a headlock and was proceeding to give me a noogie. Sensitive and emotional moment over with then._

_*_

Sam's advice concerning our mother had helped a hell of a lot. I knew now what I had to do, but I was still kind of working up the nerve to do it. I wanted to apologise in person, but I didn't think I could say everything that I wanted to without tripping over my words and making the situation worse. I had the same problems with a phone call so in the end, I decided that I would write my Mom a letter – not an email, a letter. It may have seemed as if I was taking the easy way out of the situation, but I needed to really explain what had been going through my mind then and what was going through my mind now. There were no excuses for my behaviour, nothing that could take the sting from the words that she'd heard me say, but I knew that I owed it to her to try and make her understand my flimsy reasoning behind it. I needed my Mom to know that I needed her then just as much as I needed her now and nothing that I said to an elitist, vain Hollywood child would ever change that.

I spent the rest of Saturday just hanging out with Sam and his friends, which of course included Leah. My first impressions of her had been spot on; she was extremely easy to like and she seemed to make my older brother happy. Really, what more could a sister ask for?

Sam and I talked a little about Jacob and he gave me some insight into that situation that maybe I didn't really want to hear. Actually, there was no maybe about it. Sam had outright told me that maybe it was best if Jacob and I did break up, maybe for a little longer than a 'break' would suggest. I was aghast at his words; my brother and Jake had always gotten along and suddenly he was sitting in front of me telling me that maybe I'd be better off if I was on my own.

"_Look Bella, you've been in a relationship ever since you were fifteen right?" Sam asked, knowing full well that I had been. "Have you ever thought that maybe you just want to be in your relationship with Jacob because you don't know anything else?" _

_I opened my mouth to protest, but I would have been lying if I told him that this hadn't crossed my mind at all. Of course I had questioned the exact reason I was still with Jake and I knew that it was extremely telling that I had done so. In the past, I would never have done it, never would have doubted that I was with Jacob simply because I loved him and I wanted to be with him. Now...well now, I still loved him, but maybe there were other reasons as to why we were together. Still, I didn't necessarily think that this was a bad thing. People's relationships changed all the time and the reasons that they stayed together grew as they did. The only question that plagued me was whether the reasons had grown or completely changed. I didn't have any answers for myself and I think Sam knew this because he gave me a moment and didn't press me for an answer when I didn't speak._

"_I know it's hard to let go of something that's been with you for a long time, but sometimes you just have to."_

_I asked him the question that had been going around my brain for longer than I cared to admit. "But how will I know when it's time?"_

_Sam shrugged. "Squirt, if I had all the answers, I would be charging you right now for taking up my time."_

_I childishly poked my tongue out at him. "You know that I'm your only sister right? Shouldn't I get special privileges?"_

_Sam looked for a second like he was considering what I was saying seriously. "10% off is probably the best I could do."_

_I threw a fry that had been heading into my mouth at him, choosing for now, to not think about Jacob and the possibility that the break could be for the long haul and could be for the best for both of us if it were to be so. _

I still didn't have any concrete answers regarding Jacob, but I was at least starting to ask the right questions. I still thought of myself as his girlfriend, still part of a couple and I knew that if I really wanted to figure out if I _could_ still be part of that couple, I needed to stop thinking that way. It wasn't about figuring out whether or not I wanted to be with someone else; it was about figuring out whether I should be with anyone at all. I needed to figure out who the hell I was without a boyfriend before I could figure out whether that Bella should be with Jacob anymore. Until I could stop thinking of Jacob as my boyfriend, I was going to have to ask him to not contact me because right now I don't think either of us could separate our friendship with our relationship.

Where Edward fit into this whole journey of self awareness and discovery for me was yet to be determined. When I left here on Saturday morning, I was aware that I was attracted to him and that I may have been using our relationship as a substitute for mine and Jake's. However, when I came back I was now extremely aware of the fact that Edward Cullen did weird things to my thoughts whenever they turned to him or whenever he was around. Edward forced me to think of things that I hadn't really cared to before and he brought out a side to me that I never really imagined existed. It was during a conversation with Leah that I had come to realise that maybe I was having a little more than friendly feelings for my very attractive co-star.

She had asked about the film I was doing and in telling her about it, I could hardly fail to mention Edward. I was rather surprised that she had heard about him, but she told me that she had seen him in a small film that he did a couple of years ago, before he moved out to LA. She had been rather enamoured with him since, telling me in confidence that she found him terribly good looking. When I heard those words of praise come from her, I was embarrassed for Edward. I knew that if he'd heard what she was saying, he would have gotten all tongue-tied and bashful, running his hands through his now darkened hair and looking anywhere but at Leah. He really did not take compliments well, though I was sure that he would have heard a lot of them in his lifetime.

It was very strange hearing someone talk about how good looking they thought Edward was and the questions she'd asked me about him were making me feel distinctly uncomfortable – and it wasn't just because she was my brother's girlfriend. I didn't particularly want to be telling her that Edward was a fantastic guy, that he was funny and caring and smart and just so easy to be around. I didn't want to be saying any of these things to her because I didn't really like thinking about all of Edward's attributes. If I acknowledged that Edward was all of these things and I accepted that I was attracted to him, things could get very...uncomfortable when I was around him. And I was around the guy a lot. However, I couldn't exactly tell Leah to shut the hell up because talking about my co-star was making me see him in a different light to how I'd been forcing myself to see him this entire time. Not only would it have been extremely rude of me, but it would also lead to questions that I didn't want to get into.

So, that was how I spent an entire hour or so with Sam and Leah discussing my friend. Sam had been quite interested in him as well, to my annoyance. I didn't think he would want to have a prolonged conversation about a guy that his girlfriend thought that 'hot', but apparently I was very wrong. Maybe he was just doing the whole over-protective older brother thing, but towards the end of the conversation, he was asking more questions about Edward than Leah was. He wanted to know what we did when we hung out and what Edward had told me in regards to my relationship with Jacob. I finally had to end the conversation by telling both of them that if they wanted to know so much about him, they should just meet him.

I should have kept answering the questions really because both of them gave a positive reply to my spontaneous (and admittedly rather sarcastic) invitation. I almost choked on the coke that I was drinking when they replied with _'Great idea!' _I really should learn to think before I speak. Luckily, they hadn't wanted to come back with me straight away, but they were talking about visiting me within the next few weeks when they could both get some time off work. I was happy that they were coming, don't get me wrong, but the idea of them coming so that I could introduce them to Edward made me want to die a little bit. I don't exactly know what Sam's intentions were for seeing him, but he had pretty much pulled the same stunt when I'd befriended Jacob all those years ago. Apparently, I couldn't have any male friends without my brother first having to meet them and figure out whether they were perverts.

Getting back to my current problem, I was now intensely aware of the fact that Edward Cullen was not only a great guy, but also that I was rather attracted to him. I was probably now more attracted to him than I had been a week ago and if I was being completely honest with myself, I was quite attracted to him a week ago too. There were several problems with this level of awareness. The first problem was that I now couldn't be around him without over-thinking every single thing that either one of us did or said. It was a typical girlie thing, but no matter how much I tried to stop it, I couldn't seem to stop my mind from going into overdrive at out every interaction. Like the conversation in the car for example. I was sure, at the time, that we'd just been talking about life experience, but when he got out and I was left to walk alone, I started to question whether or not there was something else behind what he said. I was driving myself insane with this not only because I wanted to know if there was anything else behind it, but also because I couldn't believe I was being this fucking pathetic over the whole thing.

The second problem with my now acute level of awareness was that I found it more difficult to see the line between myself and Kristen and Edward and Robert. That much was pretty evident when I'd almost kissed the guy again _after_ the scene was over. For this very reason, I was a little doubtful about my increasing attraction to Edward; was it because he was Edward or was it because we were both getting further into the minds of our characters. I hated it. I didn't like being confused. It was one thing to live someone's life for three months in front of the camera, it was quite another thing to live it behind the camera too. I wanted to still be Bella at the end of the day, not some weird extension of the Bella that played Kristen.

The third problem also tied in with the apparent identity crisis I was having. I had already established that I needed to stop seeing myself as part of a couple for a while until I found out who I was again. However, seeing myself as single only meant that I was even more alert to the fact that I was attracted to someone who had become quite a close friend. I didn't want to give out 'available' signals because I wasn't. I wasn't available to anyone right now, not even the guy who I still loved and who I was still in some sort of relationship with. I was not available because I had too much shit to sort out for myself without anyone else to get buried under it with me. I needed to keep repeating that. I may think of myself as single, but I couldn't think of myself as available.

All this thinking made my head hurt and I was very well aware of the fact that I was actually talking myself into circles. I was quite glad that I was an actress right now because the best way to keep this all within my control was to act like absolutely nothing had changed for me from the moment I left New York to the moment I got back. It may be the hardest performance I would have to do, but I hoped to god it was also the best; I really didn't need any more complications in my life right now.

* * *

A/N: Quite a short chapter here, but I find it reveals a lot. Don't you agree? Bella's weekend away didn't really get her away from anything did it? Edward's finding it harder and harder to think of things to keep him away from her. Progression? Maybe, but denial is a strong, strong thing. Thank you so much to everyone reading this and an extra big thank you to everyone who reviews. I have gotten some very nice reviews recently and I have thanked everyone personally and answered any questions, but I just want to say to those people again that I absolutely adore hearing what you think about what has happened so far and what may possibly happen in this story and I am incredibly grateful that you take time out of your lives not only to read, but also to leave some very kind (and I'm not sure entirely deserved) words.


	19. Chapter 19 Mixed Messages Crossed Wires

**A/N: Sorry about the late update everyone...explanation at the end. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves. **

**Chapter 19: BPOV**

The rest of my time at rehearsal was rather exhausting, but also very satisfying because it was fairly evident that everyone on the cast had been working extremely hard. We hadn't finished until 8 and by the time Edward and I had been dropped off at the apartment complex, it was nearing nine. The awkwardness that had been present between us earlier had disappeared somewhere around lunch time when he caught me trying to smoke my weight in cigarettes. I hadn't had one since the day I decided to take a break from my relationship with Jake, but I had almost chain smoked since I got back from Seattle; it was just a good job that you could get anything in this city at any time. When a break was called for lunch at two in the afternoon, I avoided the rest of the cast and crew and instead went to the back of the set where Ben had found Edward and me a few days ago. I had been on my third cigarette and telling myself that I needed to just get a grip when Edward sat himself down next to me.

"_I thought I'd find you here," he said without any other kind of greeting._

_I gave him a look of disbelief. I had only been here the time that we'd walked here together. I _never_ came here._

_He chuckled at my scepticism. "Okay, so I kind of followed you here."_

_I smiled at that. "Again with the stalking," I joked. "Will you never learn?"_

"_I'm persistent," he replied. "It's one of my more endearing qualities."_

"_You call it endearing, I call it borderline obsessive."_

_Edward shrugged. "To-may-to; to-mah-to." We both laughed and I was kind of glad that we'd just managed a normal conversation; like the ones we used to have when we were both in LA and sharing absolutely no personal details of our lives. Oh...to get back to those much simpler times._

"_I was just wondering if you were okay," Edward said when silence had descended upon us._

_I guess the carefree banter couldn't really last for long. "I'm fine," I told him, taking a deep drag of the cigarette in my hand. It quickly burnt down. I'm pretty sure that if I'd been able to look at him when I said those words, he would have been wearing a look similar to the one I'd worn when he first approached me here. However, all I could do was stare ahead of me, watching the stream of smoke that I was letting out slowly through partially closed lips._

"_It's just, some of the scenes that we're rehearsing today are a bit..." Edward trailed off, unsure of how to encompass the set of scenes that we had already run through this morning. "Well, they're a little bit full on."_

_I snorted my agreement, thinking that 'full on' was a bit of an understatement. Whereas we had spent last week rehearsing scenes with the rest of the cast and not too much with each other, today had been completely the opposite. Every single scene that we'd done and the ones that we were scheduled to do later on, were intensely emotional and very concentrated on the relationship between Rob and Kristen. It was understandable of course; the entire movie was about them, but why the hell these rehearsal scenes had to come right now, I had no idea. Luckily, we didn't have to rehearse the sex scenes (of which there were three in the entire film) until the third week. I figured that this was probably because Sue wanted to make sure that Edward and I were comfortable enough around each other not to laugh throughout the entire thing, as that would have wasted valuable time. _

"_Yeah," I nodded. "I guess they were quite powerful, huh?" _

"_So much so that I do wonder if they haven't dramatised it a bit too much," Edward wondered. I turned my head towards him as he continued to speak. "I mean I know that it's a film so everything is a heightened version of reality anyway, but maybe it's so heightened that no one will actually be able to relate, you know?"_

_I shrugged and then dropped the stub of the cigarette that I'd just finished. I wanted to ask Edward about what I'd found out about Esme, but I didn't know exactly how to phrase the question. "The poem was quite passionate in its own right though," I argued. "I mean if anything, it was far more intense than the film."_

"_I guess, but I feel like it's a little different when it's poetry, especially since no one was actually supposed to have read it and he'd addressed it to her."_

_He spoke as if he now knew for certain that it had been Kristen that the poem was about and dedicated to. If Esme was who I thought she was, she must have told Edward about Kristen and Robert. I couldn't hold in the question any more. It had been floating through my mind since Saturday morning and even though certain other things had overshadowed it, on set now, talking about this particular subject, my curiosity was at its peak._

"_Edward is Esme somehow close to Kristen?" I was watching him for a reaction and boy did I ever get one. Though he wasn't drinking or eating anything, Edward made a sort of choking sound and started coughing. I guess my question had sort of come out of nowhere._

"_What?" His voice was at least an octave higher than it normally was and even though he asked a question to me, his eyes didn't even flicker in my direction._

_I decided that I should probably explain my seemingly out of the blue question. "I couldn't get the notion that I'd seen her from somewhere off my mind and when I was on my computer, I stumbled across some research files for the movie." I was still looking at him and he was still looking straight ahead, nodding to show me that he was listening. "Anyway, there was a picture of Kristen's funeral among the files and I'm pretty sure that Esme was in the photograph. I mean she doesn't exactly have the kind of face that you see every day and the funeral was a very private affair."_

_I stopped talking, wondering what Edward would say to me. I knew what I wanted him to say; I wanted him to admit it because I was almost 100% sure that the woman was Esme even though I hadn't had chance to do anymore research over the weekend. However, I acknowledged that there was a possibility of him lying. After all, if Esme really was a relative of Kristen's, I doubted that she would want word to spread with this film in the works; her life would be put under the microscope. Not that I would tell anyone, but she didn't know me. I only hoped that Edward knew me well enough to trust that he could tell me something in confidence without me disclosing it to a third party. Then again, it wasn't really his secret to entrust me with, so I just wasn't sure what he would end up saying._

_Edward took a deep breath before he began to speak again and he still didn't look at me. "Look Bella, I don't really...it's not my place..." he was fumbling for words to tell me that he couldn't tell me. I was disappointed, overwhelmingly so considering I hadn't really expected him to tell me anything in the first place. _

"_It's okay Edward," I said softly. "I understand if you can't tell me." He turned to me and smiled a small smile then, which lessened the disappointment a little. I had no doubt that Edward as a child got away with a hell of a lot of things he shouldn't have done because of that smile. I was actually willing to be that he still got away with a whole hell of a lot because of his smile. The world really was a nicer place for attractive people. _

"_Thanks," he said. He reached out for my hand and squeezed it. I hid the surprise that sprung up within me at the gesture and squeezed back just before he let go. "Have you eaten yet?"_

_I shook my head. "I'm really not all that hungry though." Truthfully, I just wanted to spend the rest of the break here in this quiet spot, smoking and trying not to think of anything. My mind was a jumble of my own thoughts and Kristen's and it was nice not to have any for a little while. _

"_Come on Bella," Edward urged. "We probably won't get another break to eat until we leave for the night. I know a great little diner not too far from here." He flashed me the smile again and I could only roll my eyes and let myself be led away by this frustratingly persistent man._

Lunch with Edward hadn't been strained or tense at all and I found that I was almost as relaxed as I was around him before I'd had all these crazy thoughts. We laughed, we joked, we talked about our respective weekends (well, I obviously didn't tell him about the conversations I'd had with Leah and my brother) and we talked about work. Although it was quite easy to be around him, there was still the underlying awareness I had of both of our actions. There was the knowledge that there were certain things we couldn't talk about and I didn't think it was just on my end; Edward seemed a little wary of certain topics of conversation too. As a little girl, I'd often wondered what it would be like to have super powers; right in that moment, I would have liked to have had the power to read people's minds.

I let Edward into my apartment, where he immediately collapsed onto the sofa that had spent rather a lot of time on. We had plans to spend a large portion of the night reading through some of the changes made in the scenes that we had to rehearse tomorrow. We wanted to exchange some notes on how we felt the scenes should be played and if the emphasis should be different than the last time we had read them. The process could be pretty lengthy, but for the most part Edward and I had agreed on a lot of things. I had been in films with other actors that I absolutely could not see eye to eye with and it would take days to agree on a single thing for just one scene.

"Are you sure it's okay that we do this in your apartment again?" Edward asked, still laid down on the sofa, his eyes closed.

I sat myself down on the armchair closest to his head. "Yeah, I told you it makes more sense with Rosalie being in yours. I'm sure she wouldn't want to hear us talking all night about something she's really not interested in."

"I just feel like I'm always in your space," Edward admitted. "I think I spend more time here than I do in my own apartment."

"Are you complaining?" I asked, not knowing how the hell to take his comments.

Edward turned around to face me. "Not at all," he assured me. "I just feel like the balance of our friendship is out of whack right now?"

I couldn't help but chuckle at his words. "The balance of our friendship?" The mockery in my voice couldn't be hidden. "I don't even know what that pertains to Edward. I think you're talking gibberish from hunger."

Edward shrugged and turned back around to lie on his back again, facing the ceiling. "Well someone ate half my order of fries and half of my dessert, so I didn't exactly have the most filling lunch."

I threw a cushion in his face. "You practically ate my entire burger!"

He sat up to move the cushion under his head. "It tasted better than mine," he reasoned. "I think that waiter guy spit in my burger because he thought we were a couple. Jealousy will make people do horrendous things."

I rolled my eyes, but couldn't deny the fact that the waiter was definitely showing favouritism towards me. I had felt his eyes land on me the moment Edward and I stepped into the small diner. I didn't know whether he recognised who I was or whether he just found me attractive; either way I didn't exactly find it comfortable. As a rule, I didn't like to be stared at by people I didn't know.

"What shall we order then?" I asked him, picking up some of the menus that littered the top of my coffee table. "I'm kind of hungry myself and the sooner we can get started on the script, the sooner we can go to sleep."

Edward sat up properly and looked at me. "Are you tired?" His voice was laced with concern.

"Aren't you?"

"A little, but I had quite a restful day yesterday. No cross-country flights for me."

"Just rub it in why don't you." I tried to stifle a yawn, but the talk of being tired was making me even more so.

Edward gave me a look which told me that I was fooling no one with my pathetic attempt to hide that. "Are you sure you want to do this tonight?"

I nodded. "I'll be fine. When we start filming these last three weeks will seem like a freaking holiday."

"Exactly why you should get as much rest as you can now," Edward started rising from the sofa. "I should let you rest."

"Don't be stupid Edward," I insisted. "We're here to do a job and we're going to do it well. Sit back down and choose a damn menu before I end up eating your arm or something." My voice invited no argument, though I was pretty sure that he wanted to protest. I was incredibly tired, but I wouldn't have gone to sleep yet anyway; I would have stayed up and read the script just to make sure that I was ready for tomorrow. It made sense to do it together when we both knew we'd end up doing the same thing alone.

"You are quite feisty when you need to be aren't you?" Edward laughed after sitting back down and handing me a pizza menu.

I smirked at him as I dialled the number into my cell. "You better not forget it either."

"I won't Bella," he told me, grinning. "I won't."

*

Tuesday went much the same as Monday where work was concerned. Although I'd only ended up getting six hours sleep instead of the eight I had craved, it had definitely shown in the run through. Edward and I were quite seamless, even if I do say so myself, and Sue was absolutely bursting with excitement to begin shooting by the end of the day. Even Alice had grudgingly agreed when Sue had told Edward that his performance in a certain scene had been magnificent. I didn't spend the night with Edward on Tuesday because he was spending some time with Jasper and Rosalie. I was surprised to learn that Jasper was in town at all – Alice certainly hadn't said anything about him being here. Then again, I hadn't spoken to Alice too much between being away for the weekend and working with Edward last night. Our renewed friendship was still quite tentative and I had to admit that I was reluctant to talk to her in case she wanted to talk to me about Jake or Edward.

I had decided to spend the night composing the letter that I wanted to send to my mother begging for her forgiveness. I didn't know how to start, didn't really know how to say what I needed to without trying to make it about myself. I needed to show my Mom how sorry I was that I had hurt _her_; this letter couldn't be about me purging my guilt, it needed to be about me easing her pain. That was exactly why I screwed up the first two attempts at an apology. I couldn't seem to get the words down on paper and I was reminded of exactly why I had chosen to do this through letters. After putting the third balled up piece of paper in the trash, I decided that maybe I needed to take a break from the writing, just so I could clear the thoughts out of my head and come back to it fresh. I was walking to Alice's apartment before I even really made the decision to go and see her. In all honesty, there wasn't too much of a choice to be made about who to go and see when I didn't want my thoughts to consume me. Edward was unavailable and Alice was the only other person I really knew. I just hoped she wasn't too busy.

She answered the door quickly after I'd knocked. "Bella?" I could tell she was surprised at my being there.

I smiled at her, feeling a little guilty at the fact that this was the first time I had come to see her even though she was staying only two floors down from where I was. "Hey Alice, are you busy?"

She shook her head and stepped aside to allow me to come in. Although the layout and the basic furnishings were the same as mine, Alice's space was very much different to mine. I was actually a little surprised at how different it looked with the way she had arranged the furniture and the personal touches she had made.

"You've just missed Angela," she told me, leading me to the small sofa that she had placed in a completely different place to where mine sat above.

"Oh?" I didn't know what else to say. I was slightly offended that I hadn't been invited to their little meeting, but I knew that I shouldn't have been. I had never invited either of them to spend time with Edward and I.

"Yeah, she just came by to ask my opinion on what she should wear for her first date with Ben tonight," Alice informed me, though I hadn't really asked.

I was surprised by this revelation, though I knew from the start that both of them had liked the other. I guess I had just assumed that they had already gone on at least one date; they had known each other for nearly two months after all. "They haven't gone out yet?"

Alice shook her head and smiled. "I know right? They've only been into each other from the moment they locked eyes." She shrugged. "I guess they're just a little on the shy side. Angela looked like she didn't even want to tell me about tonight, but she was having a near panic attack about what she should wear."

I nodded, now a little glad that I had missed that. It wasn't that I didn't like Angela – I did, she was incredibly nice and very easy to be friends with – it was just that I wasn't the kind of girl who got excited about helping people with their clothing choices. I never understood the need to consult people on what you're wearing because surely you know better than anyone what you feel comfortable in. I firmly believed that you should wear whatever you felt most at ease in within a given situation because trying to feel at comfortable on a date was bad enough without also having to wonder why the hell you chose a particular dress that won't stop falling down or riding up.

"So what's up?" Alice asked me after I hadn't made any sort of comment about Angela's clothing crisis.

"I just wondered what you were up to tonight," I told her. "I was sitting in my apartment getting hungry and thought that maybe you may want to grab a bite to eat?" Not exactly the whole truth, but certainly plausible enough; I was hungry.

Alice looked at me for a moment as if she was trying to decide whether there was anything else I wasn't telling her. There were several things I wasn't telling her, but I kept my face open to show that I was hiding nothing. It occurred to me that friendships couldn't be built on lies, but I reasoned to myself that I wasn't exactly lying to Alice; I was just choosing to leave out certain bits of information. I didn't think that we needed to lay out our souls to each other in order to become friends. I don't think I'd ever done that with anyone and I wasn't going to start with Alice. I just wanted us to get back to the place we had been going towards before she decided to accuse Edward and me of sleeping together.

"Sure," she said finally. "What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know maybe we could just take a walk and see what we find?"

Alice nodded and grabbed a bag, stuffing her keys into it so that we could leave. It was a nice night in Manhattan; the air was warm and a soft breeze ruffled past the many people wandering the streets like we were. Alice and I didn't talk much as we walked, content to soak up the atmosphere around us and to get lost in our own musings. I had thought that Alice would be questioning my wanting to spend time with her when previously it had always been she who initiated our outings. I felt bad at that; perhaps the friendship we had developed before had not been equal and she had put in all the effort of getting to know me without my giving her the same courtesy. I wondered how the change in my relationship with Jacob would affect the new relationship that Alice and I had. Perhaps it was better all around if we did start again from the beginning because there were so many things that should have been changed from the last time. I think maybe we should have gotten to know each other not because she was already friends with my boyfriend, but because we would be good friends.

I had no doubt in my mind that Alice and I could be great friends if we both put in the effort to develop the friendship. In the beginning this had not been the case; I didn't know whether I could spend so much time with someone who was so different from me. When I had gotten to know her a little better, I found that we weren't so different after all and that my worries about her being a little too outgoing and bubbly for my sanity were completely unfounded.

"How about this place?" Alice's question cut through my thoughts. I looked up to see small and bustling restaurant that kind of faded into the background between the two larger buildings next to it.

"Sure," I agreed, leading the way into the eatery. We were seated almost immediately by a male host whose eyes trailed over Alice's figure. Alice and I made eye contact as he showed us to our table and I barely resisted the urge to laugh loudly. Men were just not subtle at all.

We contained ourselves long enough so that the man had left by the time we actually burst out into laughter. It felt good to laugh after spending the last few hours feeling utterly dreadful and on the verge of tears.

"Men are such pigs," Alice said, her voice still holding extreme mirth. "I doubt he would have shown us this table so quickly if I was a hundred pound heavier or male."

I shrugged. "Well, if you've got it then I don't see why you shouldn't use it to your advantage," I told her. "What I don't understand is why anyone would think that if they get you a table quickly enough, you would be more receptive of their advances."

Alice chuckled. "Horny people aren't exactly logical Bella." She looked behind her at the host who was still looking in our direction. His head quickly snapped back to the other people waiting in line for a table when he saw that both Alice and I were looking at him. "Besides, he's kind of a little cute don't you think?"

I studied the man at the front of the restaurant a little more closely and had to admit that Alice was on to something. He was not too much older than we were and the dark suit that was his uniform complimented his tall stature well. He was quite handsome, but then I guess that was part of why he had the job; the more attractive the host, the more attractive the restaurant was to customers.

"He's okay I guess," I agreed. "But aren't you crazily infatuated with someone right now?"

Alice's eyes turned back to me and she grinned. "What Jasper doesn't know won't hurt him," she joked. "Did I tell you that he's coming to New York next week to visit me?

I was thankful that a waiter came to our table at this very moment to distract her from my reaction to her excited statement. She thought Jasper was coming to New York next week? Did that mean she didn't know he was here right now? My mind reeled with questions about what it could mean if she didn't know. Was Jasper lying to her or was Edward lying to me? I found the latter to be highly improbable and dismissed it almost as soon as it crossed my mind. However, I found the former to be a little puzzling and I wasn't entirely sure what it would mean for Alice should Jasper be lying to her. I told myself to stay out of it; it wasn't my business.

We perused our menus in relative silence. On my part, I didn't want to say anything that would allude to my having heard that Jasper had been here for at least three days. On her part, I think Alice was just genuinely trying to figure out what she wanted to eat. Everything on the menu looked good, but I didn't have the greatest appetite anymore. It only took me a minute to decide that I wanted the lasagne, but I kept my menu in front of my face for a good five, until I heard Alice finally put hers down.

"The food here looks totally amazing," Alice commented when we had both closed our menus and were waiting for the waiter to come and take our order.

"That is does," I agreed. "I didn't know what to have."

Alice nodded along with the lie that slipped out of my mouth. It was getting to be a disturbingly easy habit, lying to her; I didn't like it at all. "So, what were we talking about before the waiter interrupted us?" I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and instead just shrugged, as if I had completely forgotten our conversation.

"Oh, right, I was telling you about Jasper's plans to visit," Alice obviously had no problems recalling our conversation. I tried to look relieved or something that she had remembered, but I doubt she would have noticed anyway; she was far too excited in recounting the details of their conversation to me.

"He called me last night and told me that he'd be flying out early next week," she was telling me now. "I didn't really expect him to do that to be honest. I mean we've only been dating a few weeks and I thought that if anyone was going to fly out to see the other it would be me, right? I would at least have some excuse other than to go and see him to be in LA. The only thing he'd be coming to New York for is me." Her delight at this was palpable and I just wanted to stop this conversation. I didn't know if I could keep it in that Jasper may actually already be here.

Alice continued talking as if I had been making encouraging noises, which I hadn't. "He's taken quite a big risk telling me he's coming out," she was saying. "I mean what would he have done if I said that I didn't want him to?"

Although I had only met Jasper once and very briefly, I doubted that the thought of Alice saying no would have crossed his mind for more than a second. It was quite obvious to anyone who had ever listened to her talk about Jasper that she was very, very smitten. It would have seemed that Jasper too, was equally smitten with Alice by planning this trip – if he hadn't already been in New York right now without telling her. I was driving myself insane with wondering whether or not he was. I had to know. I pulled out my cell phone when the waiter finally arrived to take our order and sent a quick text to Edward asking about his whereabouts and what he was up to. If he mentioned that Jasper was with him then I would know for sure that Alice was being deceived in some manner.

The reply came about a minute later, whilst Alice was wondering out loud how Angela's date was going. It was the reply that I had expected to get, but not the one I wanted to read.

'_At a bar in Brooklyn with Jazz watching Rosalie kick some guy's ass at darts. What are you up to?'_

My reply was quick. _'Just having dinner with a friend.'_ I don't think Edward would appreciate knowing that it was Alice, though he would probably have guessed, as I didn't refer to many people as my friends. I hoped that he didn't mention to Jasper who I was with, though I didn't know why I wanted to keep it a secret.

'_We only spend one night apart and you're missing me already?'_

My eyes widened when I read Edward's swift reply and I chocked on my drink. It was teasing, that much was sure, and if he'd been saying it in front of me, I would have just rolled my eyes and laughed it off. However because it was displayed on screen for me to read, I was horrified at the words. Surely he didn't really think that right? I tried not to show my panic to Alice, but something must have slipped because she had halted in her talk of the day we'd had to look at me strangely whilst I coughed.

"Drink went down the wrong way," I told her once the coughing had subsided. She looked sympathetic for a second before starting to talk again, though I couldn't really follow what it was about.

'_In your dreams Mr. Cullen.'_

It was the best reply I could come up with and probably the closest one to what I would have said were he actually in front of me. I put my phone away after that and tried to concentrate on what Alice was talking about. I didn't need to think about why the hell Jasper hadn't yet told her about being in the city and nor did I need to think about my reaction to Edward's text. All I needed to do right now was to get through this dinner and try and find some sort of common ground again with the girl in front of me. There was one good thing about the whole Jasper mystery; it distracted me from thinking about my Mom and the letter that I had to write which could drastically change my life right now.

*

I was knocking on Edward's apartment door at exactly 5:58 on Wednesday morning. We had about ten minutes before the car was coming to get us, but I needed to talk to him and I had been waiting all night. I had been unsure whether I should knock on his door in fear of waking Rosalie, but I couldn't sit still in my apartment knowing that he was just a floor above me and most likely awake. I knocked on the door again.

"Christ, what the hell?" It was Rosalie's annoyed face that appeared from behind the green door. Shit.

"Sorry," I apologised quickly, embarrassed by my obvious impatience. "I was looking for Edward."

Rosalie looked at me curiously before turning around and walking back towards Edward's room. "He's in the shower," she called out without bothering to turn around again.

She had shut the door to the bedroom before I had even gotten fully into the apartment. I was running through the details that had just been revealed to me; Rosalie barely dressed answering Edward's door at six o'clock in the morning; Rosalie going back into Edward's room and closing the door behind her; Rosalie telling me that Edward was in the shower. It didn't take a genius to work out that Rosalie had been sleeping in Edward's bed and since this was a one-bedroom apartment, they must have been sharing the same bed. They must have slept together. I knew I was jumping to conclusions; after all, Edward had slept at my apartment several times without actually having sex with me. However, as I scanned the rest of the place for any signs that he may have slept on the couch, I could see nothing. Everything was as it should be, no pillows or sheets to show that he had pulled out the sofa so that he could crash. Well, I guess that answered my question about the nature of Rosalie and Edward's relationship.

I heard the water in the bathroom turn off and muffled voices saying something in the bedroom. Five minutes later Edward appeared with his hair still damp from the shower he'd just had. I was perched on the arm of the pull out couch that wasn't pulled out at all and greeted him as he approached me.

"Hey," he returned, smiling. "Am I late?" He was obviously confused as to why I would be here this early. I wanted to point out to him that he'd been at my door on Monday morning equally as early, but I decided that this was not the best time for it. I wasn't particularly in the mood for the teasing banter Edward and I usually shared. For one, I was slightly mortified that I hadn't thought about the fact that Rosalie could be in his apartment and for another, I was still extremely curious about the whole Jasper situation.

I shook my head instead and decided to just get to the point of my early morning wake-up call. "I actually just wanted to talk to you about something," I said quickly. His easy smile disappeared to be replaced by a look of curiosity. I took this as my cue to go on. "I was talking to Alice yesterday and she mentioned that Jasper was coming into town _next week_ to see her."

Edward's face changed from curious to confused. "She doesn't know he's here now?"

I shook my head. "She thinks he's still in LA."

He opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better of it and closed it. He looked about as puzzled about the situation as I did; puzzled and troubled. When he finally did say something, it wasn't exactly what I expected.

"Rose!"

I heard a loud groan from inside the bedroom. "Go the fuck away Edward," Rosalie's voice warned. Edward ignored it and instead opened the door to his bedroom where Rosalie was spread out in the middle of the large bed, on her front with her face in the direction of the bathroom door. I didn't know whether to follow him or just stay on my spot where I had a perfect view anyway.

"Jasper's not here to see Alice," Edward told her, confirming what I had known since last night.

"What?" Rosalie sounded all sorts of pissed off and it crossed my mind that maybe they didn't have sex last night. After all, no one would sound that pissed off if they'd enjoyed their night. Then again maybe she was so tired and exhausted because they'd been up all night having sex. I don't know why on earth I was thinking about this at all, but the ideas were coming to the forefront of my mind before I could stop them.

"Alice doesn't know that Jasper's in town," Edward explained, speaking slower than he normally did. "He's been lying to us this entire time, telling us he's been with her."

"What?" This time it was me who spoke up. I didn't notice that I had moved from the couch to the doorway of the bedroom until Rosalie's eyes met mine and I read the surprise in them. It didn't matter though because something was so very obviously amiss about the situation we were discussing that it was overriding the discomfort I felt at being here with Rosalie and Edward, who may or may not have had sex in this very room mere moments ago. I wondered briefly whether Rosalie knew about the other girl that had no doubt been in this room not even a week ago. I shook my thoughts clear and decided that now was not the time to think of these things.

Rosalie was now sat up and she turned from me to face Edward. "Wait, so if Jasper hasn't been with his girlfriend the past couple of days, where the hell has he been?"

"Exactly," Edward said.

All three of us just looked at each other without a clue as to what to say.

*

**EPOV **_**(Tuesday night)**_

Rosalie had called me at lunch time telling – not asking – me that Jasper and Jasper and I were joining her for a night of chilling out and making some money. I refused. Going hustling with Rose only meant trouble and I couldn't be showing up to work with a black eye in the morning. Also, I didn't want to bail on mine and Bella's nightly readings – so far they had been working incredibly well. It was hard not to be in the moment with Bella when we shared so much admiration for the people involved, possibly me more than her.

The question that she had asked me about Esme yesterday completely threw me for a loop because I had thought that Friday night was the end of it, or at least she wouldn't have figured it out so soon. I couldn't tell Bella anything, though I didn't want to lie to her, so I put it off for as long as possible before I tried to come up with something that sounded like I was being a dick – to either Bella or Esme. Thankfully Bella could see how uncomfortable I was with the subject and so she let me off the hook, but that was definitely something I had to talk to Esme about. Bella was going to find out the truth sooner or later and I felt it was better for her to hear it from Esme herself rather than piece together bits of an incomplete puzzle. I had called her yesterday to arrange a meeting to talk about the possibility of Bella finding out the truth about her identity and her connection to the movie, but she was too busy to meet with me until Thursday and I didn't want to do it over the phone. Still, Thursday was probably soon enough, what with the amount of work that we were going to be doing this week – surely Bella wouldn't have time to play detective.

Anyway, Rosalie was not taking no for an answer. Not only was the woman texting me constantly throughout the afternoon, but she phoned me as soon as the day was finished, which was extremely good timing. Well, I had thought that until I saw that she'd actually been phoning for the past 30 minutes. I was not pleased.

"You know that what you've been doing all day could be seen as harassment right?" I said when I got finally answered my cell.

"Have I harassed you enough to change your mind?" she asked, not even bothering to fake an apology.

"Are you eight?" My voice was held disbelief that Rosalie would pull a stunt like this, but I shouldn't really have been surprised. The girl would go to quite great lengths to get her own way.

"Are you coming?" she quickly asked back. She wasn't going to get into an argument with me, merely reiterate her point several times over. Rosalie was playing dirty; she knew I'd get pissed off with her doing this, so much so that I would just give in to get her to shut the hell up. She knew that she could only do this when my patience was wearing thin, when I was tired and wanted an easy life; she could sense my weakness and she was going to exploit it. God damn it!

"Is Jasper coming with us?" I asked, already giving into her demand.

"Yeah, he has some stuff to do, but he said he'd meet us there."

"He better," I warned her. "If anyone can afford to get punched because some guy gets pissed at you tonight Rosalie it's the one who's on vacation."

"It happened one time!" Rosalie exclaimed. "You always bring it up."

"It happened twice," I corrected her. "Once when we were in Prague and once when we were in Boston. I should know, I'm the one who got his nose broken and his lip split."

Yes, being friends with Rose was a hazard for many reasons and if I didn't love the crazy bitch so much, I think I would have walked away after the first incident.

"I always forget about Boston," she said finally, conceding to my point. "I won't make any bets. I just really want to hang out with you guys and have fun." There was a pause on the other end of the line and I could sense the shift in the mood of the conversation before Rosalie even said her next words. "After everything that's happened the past couple of weeks, I just want to go back to normal life Edward."

Geez, she was using the guilt tactic as well as the one that was guaranteed to drive me insane; she must really have wanted to go out tonight. I agreed without anymore arguments or snide comments, feeling a little bit like a jerk for having made such a big deal of not wanting to go out with her tonight in the first place. It was obvious, of course, that Rose would want to get her life back after the emotional rollercoaster that she had been on. She needed to feel like nothing had changed for her here; that she had put her past to rest and she could look to the future fully. I really should think before I speak in the future.

"You're looking awfully thoughtful," I hadn't heard Bella come up behind me as I stood waiting for the car. I had left in a hurry to take Rosalie's call and had rushed from the set almost as soon as Sue finished thanking everyone for their work that day.

I turned around to find her standing slightly behind me to the left. I smiled at her in greeting. "I'm always thoughtful," I said. "I'm trying to get into the whole brooding musician psyche."

Bella laughed. "How's that going for you?"

I shrugged. "It's not too bad, though I have to saw that frowning and not saying a lot takes a lot more effort than I ever thought it would."

"Talking of getting into character, what time are you coming over tonight?"

"I'm not," I told her. The laughter in her eyes was replaced with curiosity. "Rose is insisting that Jasper and I accompany her someplace." I was a little hesitant in telling her this because the most polite thing to do would have been to extend an invitation. However, tonight was Rosalie's night, not mine and I didn't really want to have to defend or explain the reason I asked Bella to come with us tonight, to either Jasper or Rose. It would have been nice to have her there though.

"Jasper's here?" Bella sounded shocked by the piece of information, so I guess she hadn't talked to Alice yet. I assumed that Jasper and Alice had made some sort of contact by now – he'd been in town for four days and he'd only spent one of them with Rose and me.

The car pulled up in front of us as I nodded. The journey home was in relative silence; I was trying to clear my head of the day because some of those scenes had been emotionally exhausting, especially the one where my character spoke to Bella's on the night of her wedding. The tears in her eyes during our read through of it last night were real enough, but this afternoon's run through was on a different level all together. The scene was heart-wrenching and I couldn't even begin to try to understand how it would feel to watch the love of your life commit herself to another man for the rest of their lives. That was the last day Rob and Kristen had seen each other in the script, but Esme had actually informed me that this had not been the case; they had met once more just months before Kristen's death.

I walked Bella to her apartment and said goodbye, which felt oddly premature considering I was used to spending pretty much all my time with her when I wasn't sleeping. Thinking about it like that made me pause in thought; I don't think I spent that much time with anyone, not even Rose and I lived with the woman. It was funny though because I didn't feel like I ever spent _too much _time with Bella. Then again, that may have been because half the time we did spend together, we were different people. In fact, I would have said that I spent more than half my time with Bella as Rob instead of myself. Rosalie was in the shower when I got in, but she did leave me a note informing me that she'd made dinner. It was with great gusto that I made my way through the chicken pesto that was still in the pan; I hadn't eaten very much for lunch, which had been seven hours ago.

I checked my emails whilst Rosalie was busy preparing herself for our night out; she was going to be in there for a while and I had been neglecting my correspondence since last week. I don't know why I always put it off because there was so much to read if I didn't check it at least every day. There were several emails from my agent asking me to read a few things that she thought I might be interested in and a couple of emails from my manager asking me how everything was going with the film and wondering whether I was signing on for any other jobs after filming was finished. In truth, I hadn't really thought much about what I was going to do after the film wrapped. I supposed it would be nice to try and get another project booked so that I knew I'd have a job, but I also wanted to take some vacation time to visit my Mom and maybe to spend with Carlisle. Publicity for the film would no doubt take up the majority of the early part of next year, so any project that I did after this would have to either be finished by then or start after then.

There was also, to my pleasant surprise, an email from Zafrina.

_Hey Edward,_

_I hope you got the note that I left you the other morning. I don't want you thinking I snuck out. I really did have a good time, but Thailand called me. It's fantastic here. My friends and I ended up at some huge beach party in Koh Samui, which was absolutely amazing. I've sent you pictures so you would be jealous. Ha! Anyway, hope things with the movie are going well and that you're managing to have fun without me...though I doubt you have much trouble with that. Keep in touch...if you're still in New York when I get back, we should meet up._

_Zaf_

It was short and probably written in a rush in an internet cafe on a bustling Thai street; the thought made me smile. I clicked the pictures that she had sent to me and they had certainly done the trick – I was incredibly jealous. The beaches looked like a painted representation of the perfect paradise get-away and the party had certainly looked like an experience of a lifetime. It made me miss the days when I was travelling, wandering from place to place looking for nothing but adventure and once in a lifetime type goings on. It was so easy, travelling. You had no one to answer to but yourself, no responsibilities but keeping yourself alive and fed and absolutely nothing to think of but where you'd go next. It had been exactly what I needed at that point in my life. I quickly typed a reply.

_Zafrina,_

_I wasn't even a little bit surprised that you'd left...just glad that you delayed your trip for a few hours. The pictures look amazing and I am slightly envious...okay, a little bit more than slightly. Life in this sleepy little town is ticking along nicely. Work is...well, it's exhausting and probably going to get infinitely worse as the time progresses, but I wouldn't trade it in for anything. Glad to hear, and see, that you're having the time of your life (or maybe a close second?). Write when you have time...the part of me that wants to travel right now is going to live vicariously through you._

_I think we'll still be shooting in the city when you get back for the start of fall semester and it would be great to see you again and hear your tales first hand. _

_Edward._

I was glad that Zafrina and I could keep in contact without any awkwardness even after we'd slept with each other. I didn't really think there would be any drama with the way she'd left the morning after that night, but I wasn't sure until I read that email. She was quite different to a lot of the girls I'd met and I couldn't have been more thankful for that. I was just closing up my laptop when the door to my bedroom finally opened and Rosalie walked out of it ready for the night ahead.

"Hey," she said when she saw me. "When did you get back?"

"About forty-five minutes ago," I answered. "I've had time to eat and catch up on emails in the time you've taken to get ready." I got up and started towards my door, needing a shower before I could get changed to go out.

She glared at me as I passed her. "Perfection doesn't just happen Edward."

I turned back around and grinned. "I don't know Rose, it seems to just happen for me."

She rolled her eyes before laughing. "I hope you never become super-famous Ed," she called. "I'd hate for you to not be able to move around freely with the size of that head of yours. You'd be much less fun."

I replied by shutting the door to my bedroom loudly, the resounding click and bang only muffling Rosalie's laughter from the other side.

*

We'd been at the bar for thirty minutes when Jasper finally walked through the doors. I had already had to rescue Rose from a couple of guys, but this time it was because they had been making rather unwanted advances when all she wanted to do was get a drink. I say rescue her, but I could easily have foreseen the situation going the other way and I would have been dragging the woman off of the two men as they lay writhing in pain on the ground. Jasper looked pleased to see us, but there was something in his mannerisms that weren't quite as free and easy as they usually were. For someone with quite a mysterious background, Jasper always gave off the sense that he was so laid back that he was almost horizontal. Tonight was completely different. He looked at the door far too often, as if he was expecting someone he knew to come through it. When Rosalie challenged him on this, saying something about him having invited Alice, Jasper shook his head and just said that he was used to looking up to see who was coming through the door since this was exactly what he did at his own bar. It was a reasonable explanation, but the way he kept glancing down at his phone wasn't exactly easing my suspicions about his strange behaviour.

"Are you okay man?" I finally asked him when Rosalie went off to join a darts game.

Jasper looked up from his cell and smiled at me; it was forced. It was forced well, but I was an actor and I knew when people were faking emotion; I did it all the time. "Yeah," he answered.

He looked down at his cell again and when he looked back up at me, I glanced down at it on the table and quirked an eyebrow. "I'm waiting for a phone call," he explained. He offered no further insight as to what the nature of the phone call would be and I didn't ask because suddenly Rosalie called us over to play with her. Jasper was out of his seat before she even finished telling us to join her.

"How did you manage to get them to finish their game so quickly?" Jasper asked, grabbing the darts that she handed to him.

"I bet them the board that I could hit the bulls-eye from further back than the line with just one attempt," she explained, the gloating evident in her voice and her face. "They bet I couldn't – they lost."

Rosalie's talent with this game apparently came from years of archery and shooting – she was very good at judging distances and space and very accurate. She would be deadly with a weapon. I was pretty sure that if Rosalie was ever to try her hand at international espionage, she would give both James Bond and Jason Bourne a run for their money. Her best weapon would surely be the fact that no one would expect her to be able to do any of those things.

We played a few games, but Rose won every single one of them. Eventually neither Jasper nor I could take any more hits to our fragile male egos and we stopped playing with her, choosing instead to go to the bar, order some drinks and watch other people take a beating. It was nice to see Rose back to her old self. She had been so different in London, much more like the tortured 17-year old girl that I'd met instead of the strong woman that she had become. It was understandable of course, but I was now looking forward to seeing her become even happier and more at ease with who she was now that justice had been served and she had gotten a chance to really mourn for everything that she had lost – including her parents.

The conversation between Jasper and I jumped from one topic to the next, with both of us trying to avoid talking about what we had been on the verge of discussing before. It was obvious he didn't want to tell me the truth about what the hell was up with him tonight and I didn't really want to ask in case he just left. I wondered whether it was about Alice and Rosalie had been right about him inviting her along tonight. If she knew I was going to be here, there was no doubt that she would have refused; our relationship, though no longer involving violence, was still not a friendly one. Maybe he was meeting her later and was waiting for the phone call to tell him where she was. Perhaps it had absolutely nothing to do with Alice, but as far as I knew Jasper didn't know anyone else here. Admittedly, what I did know about Jasper couldn't fill up a post-it, but he had never mentioned ever having ties to the city before.

"So, how's rehearsal coming along?" Jasper asked me after a couple of minutes of silence between the two of us. "I heard from Alice that you guys are getting into some pretty intense scenes right now; especially you and Bella."

I nodded. "Yeah there were a few heavy scenes today, but yesterday wasn't too bad." I took a sip of the almost full bottle of beer that was in sitting in front of me. "It's kind of a little weird jumping in and out of the character so much for these rehearsals," I told him.

"What do you mean?"

I shrugged and gulped down another mouthful of beer. "Well when you start filming you can pretty much stay in character the entire time, but during rehearsals you have to keep going in and out so you can take critique and talk about the character with everyone involved and keep it objective."

"You're finding it hard to constantly switch from Edward to Robert?" he asked for clarification. I nodded. "Isn't that normal for you guys?"

"I guess," I hesitated. "I think people experience it in different ways and to different degrees depending on the character, the movie and what type of actor they are. I mean I feel like I can really sympathise with this guy; I feel like I can see the entire thing through his eyes. It's kind of strange."

"Doesn't that mean that you'll play him better?" I nodded. "So what's the problem?"

The problem was that I didn't want to irrevocably blur the lines so much between Robert and I that I began to see Bella as Kristen, the object of my affection. The problem was that I was already enough attracted to Bella Swan, the actress, that I didn't need to be attracted to the character she was playing either. I didn't want to lose myself to this mindset of Robert and yet we were only in the second week of rehearsal and already I was finding it hard to come out of scene and become myself again. There were many problems and it wasn't actually until Jasper asked me the question that I realised how worried about all that I had been. It shocked me a little bit. I guess I had more on my mind than I thought I did; maybe it was a good job that I was taking a night off from being Robert Pattinson to enjoy just being myself.

I wondered what Bella was doing tonight. Was she too having a night off from being Kristen? I was quite curious as to how this whole process was affecting her right now. She had done many films before this, some with just as much drama and intensity. Sure she had never really been the lead in those films, but that didn't mean that she hadn't had to give it everything she had to become that character. I doubted that she was having as much trouble as I was detaching herself from the character once we were out of a scene. Bella was a professional through and through; she had been in the business for longer than some older actors and had a career history to match theirs too. Maybe I should talk to her about what I was struggling with; she may have some very useful tips on how I could separate myself from the character I was playing.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, snapping me out of my thoughts. Co-incidentally, it was a message from Bella.

'_Hey. What are you up to right now?"_

It was a strange message to send and I didn't exactly know why she'd sent it, but I did know that I got a smile on my face when I read it. I quickly prevented the smile from growing and replied to her.

"Who are you so happy to be texting?" Rosalie had come over having apparently gotten bored with darts.

"No one," I replied, putting my phone down. "Did those guys get sick of losing?"

She slid into the booth next to Jasper. "Men are such sore losers," she sighed dramatically, as if she didn't absolutely revel in the fact that she hadn't just dented male egos tonight, but actually poked holes through them.

"I couldn't imagine why," Jasper sympathised, sarcasm lacing his words. "I mean it's not like you'd boast about it loudly or anything."

I laughed whilst Rosalie glared at him, protesting her innocence. My cell vibrated again on the table with Bella's reply. Rosalie and Jasper were otherwise occupied in their bickering so I felt it was safe to smile as I opened the message.

'_Just having dinner with a friend.'_ Alice. Bella wouldn't have called anyone else in the cast her friend and as far as I knew she didn't know anyone in New York. Was that why she had asked where we were? Did Alice not believe that Jasper was with us?

"Edward?" Jasper's voice broke through the questions in my head as I stared down at the phone in my hand.

"Huh?"

"Are you playing pool?" I looked up to find that whilst Jasper was looking at me with a strange expression, Rosalie was looking at the phone with the same enquiring gaze. I put the phone down on the table once more.

"Sure, I'm just going to use the bathroom." I got up before anything else could be said, wondering what the hell was going on with Jasper for about the tenth time tonight alone. Bella didn't normally text me to ask me my whereabouts, so it must have had something to do with the fact that she was with Alice. I could come up with only two explanations for her wanting to confirm her boyfriend's whereabouts: the first was that he had been acting as different from how he usually was with her as well as with Rosalie and me and the second was that he hadn't told her about being here. I didn't really know why Jasper wouldn't tell Alice that he was going out with us tonight unless she hated me so much that she was pressuring him to stop spending as much time with me. I doubted this reasoning very much; I may not have particularly liked Alice, but she wasn't a vindictive 10-year old.

When I returned, I found that Rosalie and Jasper hadn't left the table that we had been occupying at all. Instead, they both seemed to be involved in a deep conversation, both of their heads turned towards each other and bowed a little. Well, it seemed as if everyone was acting strange tonight. I cleared my throat as I reached the table. Rosalie's head shot up immediately and there was a flash of something across her face before she smiled up at me.

"Are you ready to play?"

I looked to Jasper, but he was draining the last of his beer so I couldn't see his expression. I turned back to Rose, who had already gotten up and was walking towards the pool table, her sway attracting the attention of the many men that she passed by – even those with girlfriends.

"Sure," I mumbled, still unsure what the hell was going on here, and followed her.

*

I was restless during the night and it had nothing to do with how lumpy the pull out couch was compared to my normal bed. I couldn't stop speculating about what was really up with Jasper because I couldn't let go of the idea that something was. He hadn't acted all that strange for the rest of the night, but then again he hadn't really been acting too weird at the beginning of the night – just not exactly like himself. Rosalie had told me that I needed to stop being so dramatic; not everyone was hiding something or up to something. This comment just made me wonder whether she knew what the hell was up with Jasper; they had been acting very suspicious when I came back from the bathroom. I asked her whether she was indeed 'in' on whatever the secret was, but she just rolled her eyes and walked into my bedroom without even giving me an answer.

I knew I was probably being paranoid, but that didn't help ease my mind and nor did it help to put me to sleep. I don't know when my mind finally shut down and allowed me to rest, but all too soon my alarm was bleeping and I knew it was time to get up for work. Rose was still asleep when I entered the room quietly in order to use my shower. Thankfully, she had never slept naked so I knew I wouldn't see anything I shouldn't as I crossed the bedroom. I looked at her sleeping form, spread out in the centre of my bed with envy; what I wouldn't give to be in her position right now.

I must have taken five minutes tops in the shower, but by the time I'd gotten out Rosalie was now in a different position and awake. I was a little surprise that she was; I hadn't made that much noise when I was in the room or when I was in the shower - I had never been one to sing in there.

"You have a visitor," she told me, her voice rough with sleep.

I was taken aback for a moment, wondering who it could have been when I realised that the only person it could have been at this time in the morning was Bella. I kept my face completely still as this fact dawned on me.

"Bella?" I didn't need to ask this of course, but I didn't know what else to say.

Rosalie nodded. "She seemed pretty eager to see you too. She was almost bouncing up and down on the spot."

I turned to my closet as Rosalie was speaking because I knew she was saying this to see if she could get a reaction out of me. The only reaction I did have was a slight panic that I was late. I glanced at the clock on the bedside table and noticed that there was still ten minutes until the car came for us. I guessed that Bella was panicking that I hadn't yet knocked on her door because for the past two days, I had come down to her apartment just before six in the morning. I picked out some jeans and a T-shirt before heading back to the bathroom to dress quickly, not really hearing Rosalie's mumblings about text messages and only one night.

Bella was perched on an arm of the pull out couch that I had already folded back up; she smiled at me when she saw me.

"Am I late?" I asked after we exchanged greetings.

Bella shook her head, but didn't say anything for a beat. I took that time to really look at her and noticed that Rosalie was right – she did seem anxious. "I actually just wanted to talk to you about something." The sentence was rushed and Bella was fidgeting with her hands whilst her knee was bouncing up and down. I frowned, wondering what the hell was going on with her. Did this have something to do with the message she sent me last night?

She continued speaking when I didn't say anything. "I was talking to Alice yesterday and she mentioned that Jasper was coming into town _next week_ to see her."

It took me a moment to figure out what she'd said and in the end I still needed to clarify it because surely Alice must have known Jasper was already here. Apparently that was not the case.

"She still thinks he's in LA."

My mind screeched to a halt and then restarted with the questions that had kept me up for most of last night. What the hell was going on with Jasper? Why the hell did he want his girlfriend to believe that he was still across the country? Why did he want us to think that he was spending time with Alice when he wasn't with us? I was on the verge of asking these questions out loud, but then realised that Bella had the same questions as I did. There was only one person who may be able to shed light on the situation.

"Rose!"

I was walking over to my bedroom before I even said her name. "Go the fuck away Edward," Rosalie's reply was quiet, but audible in the otherwise silent apartment.

I opened the door to my room and walked over to the left side of the bed where she was currently laid on her side. I didn't know whether Bella was following me or not; she was welcome to of course, but maybe it would have been better if she stayed – Rosalie wasn't pleasant in the morning unless she wanted to be up and she didn't. Still, I had seen her in a worse mood and I wasn't afraid of her.

"Jasper isn't here to see Alice," I said firmly.

Rosalie stopped trying to turn away from me and moved to face me instead. "What?" Her tone was still hard, but the fact that she was looking at me now instead of just turning over meant that I'd gotten her attention and piqued her interest. I looked up and noticed that Bella was now standing in the doorway of my bedroom with a strange expression on her face; she looked kind of annoyed about something. I hoped she didn't think it was rude of me to just leave her behind in the middle of our conversation; I certainly hadn't meant to be rude.

Rosalie cleared her throat to draw my attention back to her and her question. Right. Jasper. "Alice doesn't know that Jasper's in town. He's been lying to us this entire time, telling us that he's been with her."

I was focusing on Rosalie's face as I delivered this news to see if it came as a surprise to her. I still couldn't get over the feeling that Rose knew something more about Jasper's reasons for being here than either of them had shared with me. I was expecting the next question to come from Rosalie's mouth so when Bella's voice sounded out instead, both Rose and I turned around to face her in surprise. Bella squirmed a little under our combined gazes so I dropped mine and instead chose to focus on Rose, who was still turned away from me and facing Bella.

Rosalie sat up further and back up on the bed so that her back was upright against the headboard. She looked about as confused and overwhelmed with the information as I felt and I knew in that moment that she hadn't been given any more information than I had been. Well, that or she was the one that should have been in front of the camera, not me. Rosalie was pretty good at keeping her cards close to her chest, but she wasn't this good an actress when put on the spot like she was being right now. She must really have believed that Jasper was here to visit Alice. It didn't explain what they were talking about last night after I came back from the bathroom, but I was too preoccupied with Jasper's mystery secret to wonder what the hell the two of them were acting so suspicious about.

Rosalie voiced the question that I was pretty sure all three of us had running across our minds: if Jasper wasn't here to see his girlfriend, then what the hell had had he been doing here?

* * *

A/N: So absolutely no one knows what the hell is going on with Jasper. What is he hiding already?! Can anyone guess what Rosalie and Jasper were doing whilst Edward was in the bathroom if it wasn't talking about why he was in the city? I didn't want to spell it out, but I think I made it pretty obvious anyway. Bella's still wondering if Rosalie and Edward are sleeping with each other! Jeez...she's like a broken record! Just ASK already, right? Thank you to everyone for reading and an extra special thank you for everyone who reviews.

So...the lateness is due to a very spontaneous road trip that my boyfriend and I went on with a couple of friends from uni to visit other uni friends before we all start getting on with our adult lives (eek!). I couldn't get near a computer for longer than five minutes until now, so I apologise profusely and hope that you aren't all disappointed with this chapter after the longer than usual wait. I hope you enjoyed it and sorry once more.


	20. Chapter 20 A Little More Conversation

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 20: EPOV**

I went to work on Wednesday puzzled as all hell and distracted; very distracted. It definitely showed, especially since Bella was pretty much the same way. Both Rosalie and I had tried several times to get hold of Jasper that morning, but he wasn't answering calls or text messages and we had no idea where he was staying now. Rosalie's first insistence that it must all be crossed wires was being swayed by the fact that Jasper was not answering our calls. I was oscillating between being worried about him and being pissed for being lied to and kept in the dark. Bella had wanted to inform Alice of Jasper's presence in the city now that she was certain he was here, but had temporarily agreed not to until Rose and I got to the bottom of this extremely unusual and perplexing situation. It occurred to me that maybe getting Alice involved in the situation at hand may have been helpful because surely Jasper was still in contact with her. However, I also had the distinct impression that she would not only ask a lot of questions that no one had answers to, but it would also increase her irrational dislike of me. I guess the latter reason was a little selfish, but I had to admit that I didn't want any more hassle from her with three months of filming still to endure together.

The morning's scenes were almost painful to get through; nothing was flowing as it had previously been and every little bit of action or dialogue required much greater effort than normal. I couldn't place myself in Rob's mindset when my own was so cluttered and full of explanations that I was pulling out of thin air. I couldn't break through the haze of confusion that Jasper had left in his wake probably without even knowing about it. Being locked inside my own thoughts made being Robert more difficult than it ever had been – including during that very first rehearsal. I noticed that Bella was also struggling to find Kristen within herself in the way that she looked at me and moved around within a scene. Of course, Sue noticed both mine and Bella's less than stellar performances.

"What the hell is going on with the two of you?" she demanded after the third lacklustre scene that morning. She had asked to speak to us privately after the rest of the cast had dispelled for lunch.

Bella and I looked at each other and shrugged simultaneously, which caused Sue's previously frustrated look to turn into a hard, angry glare. I suddenly felt as if I was once again a child being scolded for talking in class. I looked down and prepared myself for the reproach that was sure to come and justified in doing so.

"I suggest that whatever the hell it is you fix it by this afternoon." Her voice was caustic. "Just because we're not filming yet does not mean that you can half-ass these scenes." She began to pace in front of us. "When you come onto my set, I expect nothing less than your best the entire time – no exceptions!" The last two words were barked out as she turned sharply away from us in the other direction. If there had been a door in the vicinity, she would most likely have slammed it so hard that it would have shaken the frame. Obviously she was pissed and she _really_ wanted the both of us to know it.

Bella and I turned to each other as soon as her footsteps faded away. I saw the same frustration in her eyes that I felt and mirrored the deep breath she let out. It would have been amusing the way we were reflecting each other, but the situation at hand didn't really call for the merriment of laughter. We were pretty much ruining everyone's day with the way we were acting – or not acting as the case may be. Without saying anything to each other we walked off set and to the place I had found her two days ago. Like that day, Bella had pulled out a pack of cigarettes and was currently inhaling deeply from one of the small white sticks. A few years ago, I would have been joining her in allowing the nicotine (and various other unnamed chemicals) to ease my mind, but giving up had been one of the hardest things I'd ever had to do and I wouldn't start the habit again for anything. Funnily enough it had been Claire that had convinced me to stop smoking after years of trying from Carlisle. It hadn't taken a lecture (or even fifty) about the dangers to my health which had finally convinced me to kick the habit, but several arguments about how Claire couldn't stand my smoking and then finally the threat of the relationship not progressing further if I carried on. Even though the threat had pissed me off at the time, I was eternally grateful to her once I'd gotten over the several months of being whiny about the whole thing. However, I could remember the soothing sensation of the first deep breath in of a lit cigarette and in times of stress, it was hard to remember why I wasn't still smoking.

"I feel about an inch tall right now," Bella started when we had reached the edge of a fenced off area that overlooked an empty space of land. "Sue was right, we were damn awful."

I nodded in agreement even though she wasn't looking at me. "We weren't exactly keeping our minds on the job though were we?"

Bella smiled wryly. "Not exactly." I watched as she took a particularly long, deep drag of the cigarette in her hand and let the smoke out slowly. I found that the act relaxed me as well as I matched her breathing. "What do you think he's really doing here?" Bella had turned to face me as she asked this question.

I shrugged. "I couldn't even begin to guess." The truth of that statement took me aback. I had known Jasper since I'd moved out to LA and we'd become been quite close from the very beginning. There was an ease in his manner and calmness in his nature that I had found was severely lacking in almost everyone else in the city. I counted Jasper as one of my closest friends, but it was transpiring that I knew next to nothing about him and it would seem that he didn't count me as trustworthy enough to let me know anything about him. I didn't know whether to be more disturbed by this or the fact that I hadn't noticed anything amiss until now; until I realised that I had no idea where to begin in tracking him down.

Bella let out a loud, long breath that wasn't missed with smoke from her cigarette and turned once more to look at the empty expanse of grey concrete before us. I studied her profile for several seconds whilst she continued to smoke, becoming entranced in the repetition of her movements. When she got to the stub of her first she dropped it to the ground and made sure it was snuffed out with the point of her show before reaching to her packet to retrieve another immediately after.

"Why is it that all of your friends seem to be hiding something Edward?" she asked as she finished her second cigarette. Ouch. Even though I knew where she was coming from given what she had witness of my friends the past few days, the accusation underlying her words stung. I don't know whether she knew exactly what her tone implied, but to me it spoke of her questioning whether or not I was hiding something important from her.

"Everyone has secrets Bella," I replied after a few seconds of just staring at the same scene she was seeing.

"Do you?"

It took me a moment or two to figure out what she'd said and another moment to pick my jaw up off the floor. I had thought the first question was abrupt and unasked queries, but this one was short, direct and almost floored me. From the way her eyes were wider than usual when we turned to face each other, the question had caught Bella by surprise too.

She flushed quickly and began backtracking sooner than I could begin to formulate a response. "Sorry, that was...I shouldn't have...you don't need to answer that." She was obviously very flustered. She was shaking her head and turning around again to face ahead, her hand reaching for the pack in her back pocket without looking at me again once.

I placed a hand on the forearm of her reaching hand and stopped its progress, also effectively stopping the apology that she was already stumbling through, but I didn't need to hear. "It's fine Bella," I assured her, adding a small – and what I hoped was a comforting – smile to prove my sincerity. She didn't look back up at me so I dropped my hand and turned so that I too was once again staring straight ahead. There were a few moments of silence as we both tried to recollect our thoughts and find out whether this conversation was heading in an inappropriate direction.

"Of course I have secrets," I answered her question finally. "Just like I'm pretty sure you do."

I didn't mean for the question to be accusatory in any way, but with the way Bella stiffened you would have thought I had a spotlight on her and was interrogating her. Her notable change in body language caused me to turn and find that she was looking at me now, her warm brown eyes swimming with a number of unexpressed emotions, the most identifiable being curiosity and guilt. I could quite easily guess that she wanted to know what the secrets I was referring to were, but was the guilt due to her own skeletons in the closet? Without saying anything she gave me a quick nod before withdrawing the packet that she had reached for only minutes ago.

I spoke before I had time to really consider the impact of the words making their way out of my mouth. "A stress smoker, huh? Are your secrets really that bad Isabella?"

Even though I had kept my tone light and my expression teasing, there was a few seconds before she could fully compose herself where Bella's entire face was alight with a panic that had my head spinning. It was only probably three or four seconds where Bella failed to be able to construct her face into a more appropriate expression, but it told me everything I needed to know about the secrets that she had admitted to having. I couldn't believe that the girl in front of me would ever have secrets that could justify the reaction my supposedly harmless comment garnered from her, but as I was quickly learning, you didn't always know people the way you originally thought. Somehow this thought in regards to Bella disrupted my peace of mind even more than when it regarded Jasper. Strange.

"Where do you think he is?" The change in subject was anything but subtle, which was just Bella's way of ensuring that I would not continue down the previous path of conversation we had been on.

I could take a hint. I shook my head. "He never actually told us where he was staying," I admitted feeling like we were extremely stupid for not having asked and attempted to explain our reason for the omission. "Rose and I just assumed that he was with Alice; after all, we thought he was here to visit her."

Bella nodded and said nothing more on the matter, confirming that she hadn't really expected to learn anything useful with her question. Instead, she had used it to divert attention – both mine and hers – from the increasingly serious and personal conversation we were having; a conversation that she had actually started. She kept looking from the empty scene in front of us to me and back again, giving me the distinct impression that there was something she wanted to ask me. I caught her opening her mouth and then closing it again to bite her lips, her eyes not focused on me at all, but staring out at something that I couldn't even see. It looked like she didn't just want to ask me something, but wanted to _tell_ me something too. I didn't know how to start figuring out what either of those things were so I didn't say anything and instead just watched as she finally turned to face the space before us, resolutely shaking her head and folding her arms across her chest. They didn't stay there long; Bella was agitated and when she was in this state, I had noticed that her hands never stayed in one place too long. She ran them through her shortened, lightened hair, bit her nails, tapped her fingers on the side of her leg and finally took out the packet of cigarettes once more, but this time it was solely to play with the box rather than to take out another slim, white stick.

"Edward where's your Mom?" Bella's voice was soft, but it cut through the silence between us like a steak knife and rang clearly in my ears. Even in my extremely bewildered and shocked state, I noted the hesitation underneath her words. She wasn't facing me, but her body was now angled more towards me.

I, myself, turned away from her and looked out at the emptiness before me, wondering exactly how I was going to answer her; how I _wanted_ to answer her. If it had been _anyone _else in the world, I would have given them the standard answer: my Mom lived with my great aunt just outside the DC area to look after her in her time of elderly confusion. It was a story that Carlisle, my mother's doctors and I had decided upon when I decided to really take the acting thing seriously in case any reporters started digging. It wasn't my idea; it wasn't even something that I'd thought about until Carlisle brought up the possibility of me making a name for myself in the industry and the price that came with that – the complete loss of privacy. At first I told him that I didn't really have anything to hide that most teenagers throughout the country wasn't already doing themselves, but then he mentioned Mom and everything changed. It wasn't that I wanted to hide her; that I was embarrassed about her condition. There was shame there, but it was of how everything turned out, not shame about my mother herself. I could never be ashamed of her; she had a strength that I couldn't even begin to comprehend and certainly couldn't emulate. I loved my Mom unconditionally, just like she loved Carlisle and I...and how she still loved my father. The lie could easily have come out of my mouth, but it _wasn't_ just anyone asking, it was Bella and I didn't want to lie to her.

The topic of my mother was a painful one and it was usually not the sort of thing that I ever talked about willingly. Even though I had already admitted to Bella that I had gone to see my Mom during that second round of auditions, I had never ventured into the reasons why and I had never really intended doing so. There were so many emotions wrapped up in the story of my mother that I ultimately ended up a jumbled mess whenever I even thought about it. There was also the overwhelming sense of shame that I had buried over the years, but would easily resurface whenever the subject was brought up. The shame was rooted in the fact that even though my mother may now be in the best place for her, I was the one that had put her there because I hadn't been strong enough to keep her safe. Logic and rationale over the years had put this into perspective for me, but the shame would never fully die and there was still a small part of me that was afraid of being judged and condemned for my weakness and failure.

I could have tried to put off the question, but I had already put off the question about Esme because the answers to Bella's questions about that situation were not mine to give. Bella deserved to know the truth of course because had just been reiterated to me by the Jasper situation, friendships shouldn't be based on lies and half-truths, but on honesty. There was also the undeniable fact that Bella had obviously shared something extremely personal and painful with me already; surely I should afford her the same level of trust. It couldn't have been easy for her to tell me about the problems she was having with her boyfriend – even if she did want my advice at the time – but she did and it did mean something that she valued my opinion.

Before I could make up my mind about what to do, Bella had apparently gotten impatient of my silence and started to speak once more. "Look, I know that my question was totally unexpected and very personal but I just..." she trailed off and took a deep breath. "We're friends right Edward?"

I didn't even have to think of the reply. "Of course! Why would you even have to ask that?"

Bella turned to face me and her eyes bore a storm of emotions – none of which I could single out and name. It would have been obvious to anyone that the girl in front of me was troubled and baffled, but I didn't know the reason why; surely it was more than my not responding to her question quickly enough.

"I feel like there's you and then there's you that's playing Robert and I don't know the difference," she admitted finally, shaking her head to emphasise her point. "I don't feel like I really know who you are Edward and that bothers me. It –" She stopped speaking then and turned back towards the grey expanse before us both, inhaling deeply to get control of her emotions and the words that looked as if they were wanting to burst out of her.

I didn't know what to say; I was surprised by the intensity of her emotions and the depth of her confusion. However, even though I didn't know the words that would calm some of the questions in her mind, I did understand her. Wasn't it only the other day that I was worried about the fabricated world we were currently in? Wasn't I starting to find the line between who I was and who my character was to be a lot finer than I had ever imagined? I was wrong in thinking then that Bella had all the answers because it seemed as if she was having a similar sort of problem, though it didn't exactly manifest itself the way mine had.

"You say you have secrets and okay, everyone does and everyone is entitled to do so, but tell me something please; something real; something true." There was no mistaking the plea in her voice and the hints of frustration warring with desperation that her words conveyed.

I turned my head to find that she was once again looking at me. We held each other's gazes for several moments before I turned away to face the emptiness instead and began to speak. "My Mom's in Maryland," I told her, keeping my gaze focused on the horizon. "There's a..." I paused here, not sure how I should refer to the institution that my mother was residing in. "A home, of sorts, just outside the DC area that she's lived in for the past 7 years or so."

"A home?" Bella obviously picked up on the hesitation before I finally picked that word. Her voice was quiet and gentle, full of curiosity but not pushing me to talk if I didn't want to continue. Obviously she understood that this was going somewhere more personal than she had imagined.

I nodded without turning to look at her; it was easier to tell her without having to see the judgement in her eyes. "When I was 13 my Mom was diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia," I explained, trying to keep my mind detached from the words I was speaking so that I could keep my voice even. "When I was 16 she was admitted to a medical facility because she..." My voice cracked and I had to swallow around a huge lump in my throat to be able to continue breathing, let alone talking. I felt Bella's small, soft hand on my forearm; she was letting me know that I didn't need to go on, that she understood now. She didn't understand, not really and now that I had started on this story, I found it quite difficult to stop. It took me by surprise that I _wanted_ Bella to know this part of my life and I was too shocked with this realisation to question why this was.

I took a deep breath and continued. "There was an incident when I was 16 when it became clear that my mother could no longer live without constant supervision; something I couldn't...I tried...but I was only...it just wasn't..." The guilt overwhelmed me and I could no longer carry on telling her my story, not when I knew that the result would forever colour Bella's opinion of me. She removed her hand from my arm and I knew then that she, like I did, blamed me for not being enough to keep my own mother out of what was effectively a nut-house. It was excruciating; both reliving the pain and knowing that Bella could now see how weak I was; how much of an utter failure of a son I was.

I kept my eyes resolutely fixed on the horizon in front of me, but could feel her eyes roving the side of my face, no doubt trying to read my mind by the emotions my expression conveyed. I didn't want to turn around and see the condemnation that was surely brimming forth from the once friendly brown eyes; I already hated myself enough.

"My Mom and I don't talk," she told me, quite unexpectedly in the silence that surrounded us. "Well, not really anyway. We haven't really had a conversation in about 3 years."

It was surprise at her completely unbidden admission that caused me to finally turn to face her. That surprise was quickly swept away by the relief that washed over me as I failed to see the condemnation I was so sure would be directed at me. However the relief was almost as rapidly replaced with sadness at the pain that instead shone from her caramel irises. She gave me a forced smile that came across as more of a grimace.

"I'm telling you this because I can practically feel the self-hatred coming off you in waves," Bella explained. She pushed back the hair that had fallen into her eyes. "My situation with my Mom is completely on me, so I know exactly what it's like to blame yourself for a less than ideal relationship with your parent, but in my case it's fully deserved." She stopped speaking to swallow thickly. "In your case, it's completely misplaced and I know I can't be the first person to tell you that." Her voice was full of conviction and I wondered how it was that she could be so sure without my having really told her any of the details because I physically couldn't get the words past my lips.

I shook my head and opened my mouth, whether to correct her comment about my blaming myself or to argue about her declaration of her being at fault entirely, I wasn't entirely sure. I never found out what would have come from my mouth because before anything could, Bella was already speaking again.

"The whole mess with my Mom is 100 per cent my fault; I was young, reckless and very thoughtless. I was naive and trying very hard to fit into a world I really had no idea about," Bella recounted, her voice and expression contemplative. "It sounds like I'm trying to make excuses, but I'm not – honestly." She puffed out a breath and shrugged. "I guess I'm giving reasons or something – shitty ones at that."

She hadn't exactly told me what it was that she was taking the blame for and I had a feeling that she was never going to five me the specifics, but nor was I ever going to ask. I couldn't even begin to guess what the amazingly compassionate girl in front of me could have done to ruin her relationship with her Mom because Bella just didn't seem capable of anything that bad. The Bella I had known for nearly two months now was strong and stubborn yet at times incredible vulnerable. She seemed to know exactly who she was and where she was going and yet could still be so confused and unsure. I didn't believe for a moment that the person I had come to know could do something to terrible that it had alienated her own mother for 3 years.

I told her something to this effect, but Bella just gave me a small, sad smile and shook her head. "I don't think you would have liked me much back then Edward."

I couldn't say anything to the contrary that would have really meant much considering I didn't know her back then. I wanted to though; I was pretty certain that I would have liked Bella at whatever point in our lives we met. Since my saying this wouldn't have carried any weight at all, and would have probably created an air of that awkward tension that sometimes wrapped itself around us, I didn't say anything. We both returned to our own thoughts for several moments, the air becoming silent once more except for the sounds of our breathing and the normal buzz of places just outside a huge city's limits.

I was thinking that it was kind of funny how I seemed to bond with people based on the tragedies of life – both theirs and mine. First it was Rosalie and now it was Bella. I began to wonder whether my friendship with the girl beside me would be either as long lasting or as strong as my relationship with Rosalie turned out to be. I would like to think that eventually, I would count Bella not only as my closest friend on set, but one of them off set too. I was all too aware of the artificial situation we were currently in and it had probably pushed us to become closer quicker than we would normally have done. However, when I really thought about it, I realised that the closeness was there even before we spent all our free time pretending to be our generation's answer to Romeo and Juliet. I had always felt a certain sense of familiarity with Bella; a comfort and ease around her that usually came with years of friendship instead of the weeks we'd known each other. Even during the times when that weird air of tension permeated the air between us, it was never a _bad_ kind of tension – just different from the way we usually were.

The rest of our lunch break was spent alternating between partaking in inconsequential chatter and saying nothing at all. We were laughing about some onset gossip when Alice interrupted us to bring us back onto set; she didn't look too happy to see the two of us together. Then again I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen Alice smile around me when it wasn't required for a scene; all she ever did was smirk and glare. I caught the flash of guilt that moved across Bella's face when Alice first appeared and knew instantly that she was thinking about her knowledge of Jasper's deception. However, she hid it very well because her face was completely expressionless once more within the blink of an eye – I doubted Alice noticed anything unusual in her friend's expression.

It was funny how even though I knew Alice couldn't stand me, she waited for the both of us to walk to where she was standing and inserted herself in between Bella and I so that she walked between us the entire way. Obviously she was still under the impression that she couldn't trust me not to try and steal Bella away from a guy that she was actually not even really seeing right now. I found a chuckle escaping my lips before I could prevent it and got the trademark Brandon glare for daring to enjoy myself in her company. I caught Bella's eye over her head when she returned to looking in front of her and rolled my own. Bella had to bite her lip to keep from laughing, but the smile in her eyes couldn't be hidden. I found it utterly ridiculous that Alice would think I was moving in on Bella. Sure we spent a lot of time together, but that was because we were the leads of the damn film and our relationship pretty much defined the entire movie. We had to have a different kind of bond from everyone else in the cast to achieve any believability on the screen. We were just doing a job. Besides, Alice's actions implied that Bella _could_ be seduced away from Jacob and the relationship that had defined her formative teen years by _me_. That was just completely laughable. Right?

*

The scenes we did during the afternoon and early evening were so much better than the ones in the morning that it could have been completely different people in them. The relief felt by everyone was palpable. Bella and I had obviously gotten past the drama of the early morning discovery and found our rhythm once more. It was strange though; there was a definite difference in the way I saw Bella within the scenes. I felt as if I actually _saw_ Bella through the haze of Kristen and yet it didn't impede the ability to feel like Rob felt. Instead, it added a different layer of connection; brought a different level of emotion. Now that I knew something personal about Bella, I felt as if _I _could connect to her rather than Rob connecting to Kristen – the middle step in our onscreen relationship had been erased and our performance had been strengthened by it.

Sue agreed emphatically. "Right, so I know for the next time that chewing your asses out really does make a difference with the two of you," she pointed out with a grin. "That scene was excellent!"

It felt great to know that we were still doing a good job in light of the blip this morning, especially since we were getting ever closer to actually filming the movie. In only a week and a half we would be capturing these scenes on film to eventually be seen by millions of people around the world. Well, hopefully millions anyway. There was a certain buzz about this project that made everyone involved a little nervous. A lot of people out there – both in and out of the industry – were waiting for this film to come out just so they could say it failed. Yet there were also some people, whether fans of the story or just of the mysterious singer, were really wondering whether his words could be portrayed in a manner that didn't have him spinning in his grave. I only hoped that we didn't disappoint this latter half. Myself, I had the additional burden of actually knowing someone who were involved with these people; who would watch the film with the knowledge of how it all went down in the first place. The thought of disappointing Esme was never far from my mind and I was terrified of such a prospect, even though she would never let me know that she was disappointed.

Rosalie was not in the apartment when I got back in that night. Instead of her person, I found a hastily scribbled note on the breakfast bar in the kitchen in her hand writing.

_Ed,_

_May have found something promising on the Jasper front. I'm going to dig a little deeper to see if it leads to something more. Will be back some time tonight, but don't know when so have dinner without me and don't wait up. I'll call you if I come across something interesting. Also, Esme wants you to call her back. _

I was intrigued both parts and wanted to know more about the 'something promising on the Jasper front' that Rosalie had mentioned, but when I called her cell it went straight to answer phone. I was immediately worried – it wasn't usual for Rose not to be easily reached. I tried again and got the same response. Was I being completely irrational in wondering whether she was in physical danger right now? Probably. I shook my head to clear it from the thoughts I was having as a consequence of watching too many films with conspiracy plots. I couldn't imagine Jasper, of all people, being involved in anything dangerous – he just didn't have the disposition. Something in the back of my mind reminded me that it was always the ones you least expected that turned out to be hiding the darkest secrets, but again I put that down to having watched one too many episodes of 24 where everyone had a secret agenda only to be revealed at the very end of the season. Real life just didn't work that way.

Instead of calling Rosalie for the third time and indulging my slightly paranoid thoughts, I called Esme instead wondering whether she was calling to finally tell me they'd picked a final date for the rescheduled wedding. She answered on the second ring, obviously expecting my call.

"Hello Edward," she greeted. "How was your day?"

I was tempted for a second to just give her the perfunctory reply of 'fine', but before I knew it I was telling her the truth of exactly how awful it was this morning, both at home and at work.

"Yes," Esme acknowledged. "Rosalie did tell mention something about the Jasper mystery. I'm sorry it affected work though. I hope you didn't get in trouble."

I chuckled at this because in fact, yes, I did get in trouble. I got scolded like I was a naughty little boy once more and it took a heart-to-heart conversation with someone who was quickly learning all my secrets to get me out of trouble. "It was fine," I told Esme, choosing to leave out the details. "I got over it by the afternoon scenes and everything was once again smooth sailing."

"Well I'm sure he has a perfectly good explanation for everything," Esme declared and her voice was so certain that if I didn't know any better, I would start to think that maybe _she_ knew something about Jasper's situation that I didn't. I almost laughed out loud at my line of thinking – I really should stop with the conspiracy theories. "I actually wanted to talk to you about two things Edward."

My eyebrows rose up in surprise. "Two?" I asked. "I expected one."

I could hear the smile in Esme's voice when she replied. "Well the first is about the wedding. Your brother and I have narrowed it down to two dates." I heard the faint rustling of paper from her end as she stopped talking. "The first date is two weeks from Saturday and the second date is four weeks from yesterday. I just wanted to check which of those two would be best for you with the filming schedule?"

I was flabbergasted that Esme would consult me on when was the best time for _me_ even though it was _their_ wedding. "Look Esme, don't worry about the filming schedule. Whenever you and Carlisle decide to have the wedding, I'll be there. It's family and it's important."

Esme laughed softly into the receiver. "Carlisle said you'd say exactly that," she informed me. "Still, I know what these people are like Edward and I would really feel better if you would just ask them now. We're both fine with those dates; after all, we selected them from a bunch of others. I know you'll be there no matter what, but it would ease my mind a lot knowing you weren't jeopardising your job just to come to our wedding."

I started to tell her that no job was worth missing my brother's wedding, but she just told me to ask and stop talking about it. I acquiesced, telling her I'd ask Sue first thing in the morning and get back to either her or Carlisle as soon as possible. It struck me as kind of weird that Esme and Carlisle's wedding could be arranged at such short notice. I had been to Claire's cousin's wedding with her when we were still together and I heard that it had taken almost a year to get everything together. At the time I thought it was an extremely excessive length of time to plan anything, but when she began telling me about the things that actually went into planning a wedding, I began to wonder how it didn't take longer. I mentioned this to Esme.

"When you have enough money and come from the right family, a wedding can be organised in less than two days," was her reply.

Ah yes, of course; money and power. I often forgot that Esme came from one of the oldest and richest families in Manhattan even though it never left my mind that she was related to Kristen. Esme just did not at all give off the air of being privileged. She was the most down to earth, reasonable, sensible, kind, _normal_ person I knew and I couldn't match that with the society that she had grown up in. I had met people of high society in Manhattan before and they were _not_ in any way normal. They left you in doubt that they thought you beneath them within the first ten seconds of meeting them. It's quite funny how people with money can recognise both people without and people who have acquired their riches very recently – both were the undesired types. Whilst being rich was certainly a bonus with these people, to be really _in _with the crowd, you had to have been rich for at least five generations – everyone else were just pretenders.

"Now the second matter I wanted to talk to you about was Bella." Esme's voice said, bringing me out of my musings about wealth and power. I stiffened and gripped the phone noticeably tighter. I hadn't yet told her that Bella was asking questions about her, so I couldn't imagine what we would have to talk about regarding my friend and co-star.

"Bella?" I asked.

I heard movement on Esme's end, suggesting that she may have been nodding even before I heard the affirmative answer from the speaker. "I think I may have to speak with her about the film and my cousin," she explained and I almost dropped the phone in surprise. I had wanted to broach this subject carefully and here she was just putting it all out there.

"Really?" My voice sounded odd.

Esme laughed. "I know this was what you wanted to talk to me about at dinner tomorrow night," she told me. Damn, she was perceptive. Or was I just extremely obvious?

I began to apologise for my lack of thought on the matter, but she cut me off before I was even half way through a decent apology. "Don't worry about it. It's fine," she assured me. "I was thinking about telling her as soon as I met her, but it took me a while to...she looks so much like Kris did at that age."

I understood. I had been right on Friday night; it had been hard for Esme to be in the same room as Bella without constantly being reminded of her cousin. I'm sure talking about Kristen to someone so achingly similar in appearance was not going to be easy and yet Esme was actually _volunteering_ to do it. No wonder Carlisle loved this woman.

"Anyway," Esme continued, her voice getting louder to cover up the moment of melancholy she displayed only moments ago. "Ask her if she'd like to come to dinner with us on tomorrow night if she has no other plans."

"I'll ask her," I agreed. "Listen Esme, if this is too hard-"

"It's always hard Edward," she told me. "It's hard every day knowing that she's dead. People tell you that time heals, but it doesn't really. You're forever changed. You just learn to live as the person you are instead of the person you used to be."

"You don't have to do this," I assured her, hating to hear the strain in her voice that surely must be attributed to her trying to hold back tears.

"I know, but I want to."

There was a pause in our conversation as I marvelled at just how incredible Esme was and how lucky my brother was to have her in his life – how lucky we all were to have her now. We said subdued goodbyes to each other after she made me promise to call her with news on both counts as soon as I knew. I thought about what Esme had said about the death of a loved one forever changing who you were for a while after I hung up. I wondered whether it was just death, or generally _loss_, that made you someone different. I thought back to people that I had lost and wondered whether their absence in my life was the reason I was here, at this point living this life and being this version of myself. It was odd thinking of it in this way because people so often tell you that the people in your life influence who you are and who you become. Could their absence do the same thing? Or was it just the _removal_ of an active influence that changed you?

*

**BPOV**

The first thing I did when I got back from rehearsal was sit at my desk and write the letter to my Mom that I had been trying to write since coming back from Seattle. My conversation with Edward this lunch time unlocked something within me that I couldn't begin to explain and I found that almost as soon as I touched pen to paper, I had filled out a whole side of the sheet and said the very things that I couldn't even comprehend how to start expressing only last night.

_Mom,_

_I've started this letter more times than I can even remember, wanting to find the perfect words to say to you to try and repair the damage that I caused all those years ago. I now realise that there are no perfect words and the only two words that matter – that ever mattered – are __**'I'm sorry'**_**. **_They seem so small written on the page like that, but the size of those two words has no bearing on either their significance or their meaning. I am sorry Mom. I am sorrier than I could ever express in words – either written or spoken – and I hope that I'm not too late in expressing this sentiment to you. I know I've let you down in the worst possible way. I betrayed you. I belittled both you and the relationship we shared in order to try and fit in with the crowd. I disrespected you by turning my back not just on everything you taught me to value, but also turning my back on you – the woman that gave me life, that showed me what it was to live, to love. You have always supported me. You were always my best friend as well as my mother and instead of thanking you like I should have, I completely destroyed you; destroyed our relationship._

_I have no excuses for what I did – there can be none. You had always taught me to be careful with other people's feelings and yet I stomped on yours like they were nothing. It was a despicable thing to do and I want you to know that you did teach me better. This was not a failure on your part at all. You've always been a fantastic mother and a brilliant friend. It was me that chose to ignore an entire lifetime of advice and teaching simply because I thought it no longer applied to the world I found myself in. I was wrong and I realised it too late. This won't come as a consolation to you because of the way I have wounded you and the depth to which I did it, but I have never forgotten who I am since that time. I have worked hard to be the person that you and Dad raised me to be ever since then and I thank you for it._

_I don't know if this letter will make a difference to you, but I hope you believe that I really am sorry about what happened and I wish I could go back and remind my younger self of everything that you told me. I will spend as long as it takes to prove to you how sorry I am Mom. I hate the knowledge that I've lost you because of what I did, but I know I deserved it._

_I love you and you will always be my best friend,_

_Bella_

I was crying by the time I finished it and quickly grabbed some tissues so that my falling tears wouldn't smudge the ink on the paper. It seemed like such a small gesture, but it was the only one I could make and it came straight from the heart and I hoped like hell that it was enough of a start. I put the letter in an envelope and went out to mail it before I lost the courage to send it. Listening to Edward talk about the situation with his Mom made me long for mine even more. He didn't have to tell me every painful detail for me to be able to fill in the blanks and it was incredible that even after what he had tried to do for her, Edward still found something to blame within his actions. I was determined to make things right with my Mom because there were some bonds that you just couldn't live your life without. Edward had done everything in his power to try and keep his Mom with him and I had to do everything in mine to _regain_ my relationship with mine. I guess our talk had done more than improve our performance for the afternoon; it had lit a fire within me.

I checked my emails when I got back to my apartment having neglected them for the entire weekend and the first part of the week; I should have just continued to ignore them. There was an email from Jake and before I could really think about what I was doing, I was clicking it open and absorbing the words that he had typed.

_Bella,_

_I don't even know why I'm writing this, but I find myself being unable to stop even though I know I shouldn't be doing it. I get why you didn't reply to my text and I wanted to tell you that I didn't really expect a reply. My head was full with thoughts about missing you and before I knew it I had already sent the text message. I'm not sorry that I sent it – it was completely true – but I am sorry if it caused any pain or confusion on your part. It's just...it's a lot harder than I thought it would be to not be able to just pick up the phone and talk to you and I already thought it would be the hardest thing that I'd ever done. I know I can't just do that though because it'd be like nothing's changed and that would probably leave us more messed up than we are right now. I want to be your friend Bella, I really do, but right now I don't know how to be that without being all the others things as well._

_Fuck. I don't even know if I'm making any sense. It just seems like I'm rambling on about a load of shit to stop it taking up space in my head. Blame Emmett for this. He tore me a new one because I've been in a crappy state for a few days and when I said I had a load of stuff on my mind, he just told me to write it down. Apparently it always helped him. I guess he doesn't then go and send it to his ex-girlfriend or whatever we are now. I just know that if there's one person in the world who gets where I'm coming from with this (if they can decipher through the bullshit anyway), it's you._

_I hope I haven't crossed any boundaries or anything by doing this; we never did set up any rules for this thing. Sorry if this is all just gibberish._

_Love always,_

_Jacob_

I may have been able to ignore the text message by occupying my time with something else, but there was no way in hell that I could ignore this email and I didn't _want_ to ignore it either. I did get what Jacob was talking about, though there was a tinge of guilt rising up within me when I thought about how this separation seemed to be going a lot harder for him than it was for me. I suppressed those thoughts as soon as they started to form; it was only because I had all the drama with my Mom, which was the single hardest thing that I'd ever had to go through in my life. That was the reason that my problems with Jacob didn't seem that trying – almost seemed a normal part of growing up. I refused to even think that it was because of any other reason. What other reason could there be after all?

There was no answer except the knock on my door. I glanced at the clock on my laptop and knew instantly that it was Edward on the other side because we had arranged to have a working dinner. I closed my laptop quickly and decided that I would reply to Jacob's email later – after running lines with Edward. Even though we had blown everyone – including ourselves – away this afternoon, there was still the dark cloud of this morning hanging over me. I knew it was because we were both thinking Jasper, of course, but it didn't sit well with me that we could both suck so much that the director had to have words with us because we were letting the rest of the cast down.

"Come in!" I called.

Edward came through my door with a smile and two take out menus in his hand. "I was thinking Chinese tonight and wanted to know which of these fine eating establishments would most satisfy your gastronomic urges?"

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Gastronomic urges hey? You make that sound almost a little dirty Mr. Cullen."

Edward coughed and then rolled his eyes at me as he got close enough to hand me the two menus he had brought with him. "That's just your sick perverted mind working overtime Miss Swan."

I laughed because it really was a little perverted of me to comment like that on something he said that was completely innocent and free from sexual innuendo. I quickly perused the dishes that both were offering and handed him back the red one. "I think this one will satisfy my urges," I replied purposely using the same words he'd used.

Edward's mouth dropped open in surprise for a nano second before he closed his jaw and instead gave me a teasing smirk. I could read the expression on his face like he was a book with large print. I laughed and tossed a cushion in his face. "Now who's got the sick, perverted mind?"

In true kindergarten fashion Edward stuck his tongue out at me and said "Takes one to know one." I laughed even harder and continued doing so even as he ordered our food. I belatedly realised that I had completely forgotten to tell him what I wanted, but when I opened my mouth to speak he just shook his head and carried on speaking.

It turns out that Edward was a freaking mind-reader because everything that was delivered was exactly what I wanted to eat. When I asked him about this he laughed and reminded me that we had eaten together enough times for him to know what kind of food I liked and we had certainly had Chinese take-out enough times for him to know that I ordered only five dishes in random rotation. I frowned at this; I hated being predictable.

The plan was to spend about two hours reading through the scenes we had to do tomorrow and discussing them. Two hours was ample time for preparation, especially since I imagined that both of us were pretty tired. I know I certainly didn't get much sleep last night. However, Edward completely blew the plan out of the water with the next thing he said to me; whilst I was chowing down on some Dim Sum.

"Esme wants to meet you." Well, I certainly couldn't accuse him of being the type to prolong important news. I choked on the steamed deliciousness and Edward had to thump my back twice for me to be able to dislodge it from my throat. "Sorry."

I took a long sip of the beer that he had gotten me from the fridge ten minutes ago. "You should be," I scolded, only half joking because I really could have choked on that piece of food. "You wait until _after_ someone swallows to give them shocking information."

Edward coughed up the noodles that had just on into his mouth and he too had to quickly take a sip. "Is it just me or does everything we're saying tonight have a dirty double meaning?"

I repeated the words I'd just said in my head and laughed out loud as I realised what he was talking about. "It's not just you, but you are trying to change the subject." In truth I was trying to change the subject from the topic of our dirty minds because talking about sex with Edward made me honestly a little uncomfortable. I was slightly dreading the sex scenes that we were going to have to do in the not-so-distant future.

"I wasn't," he protested. "I was merely commenting on an observation that I had just made."

I didn't want to dwell so I chose not to argue my point. "Comment noted," I said quickly. In truth, my discomfort about talking about sex with Edward was only half the reason I wanted to press the issue; the other half was that I really wanted to know exactly what Esme had said to him. "Now tell me more about Esme wanting to meet me."

Edward shrugged and continued to shovel noodles into his mouth. "There's nothing really much more to tell," he said between mouthfuls. "She asked me to invite you to dinner with the two of us tomorrow if you're not busy."

I furrowed my eyebrows and looked at Edward suspiciously. "Did you tell her that I was asking questions about her?"

He shook his head and I felt relief flood through me; I didn't want Esme to think that I was unhealthily obsessing over her or anything and nor did I want her to think that I was prying into her life. I just really wanted to find out what the hell she had to do with Kristen and if she had any connection or information about the movie that we were doing. In fact, I had an awful lot of questions for her come to think about it and I knew I would have to rein it in before tomorrow night if I didn't want to appear like some crazy woman.

"Are you free for dinner then?" Edward enquired with a grin because he already knew damn well that I was so intent on getting to the bottom of all this that I would have cancelled pretty much anything else to be free tomorrow night.

"Of course," I replied. "Is there anyone else going to be there besides the three of us?"

Edward shook his head. "Not as far as I know, but maybe Carlisle will be there with her for moral support."

"Moral support?" This puzzled me.

Edward looked awkward for a second, as if he was trying to decide what he could say to answer my question without revealing too much to me. After a few more moments of uncomfortable squirming he sighed deeply. "Tomorrow night's just going to be a little hard for her," he told me. "I can't really go into why – you'll figure it out anyway when the two of you talk."

I levelled him with a questioning gaze, but didn't ask him anything because I knew he wouldn't tell me anyway. Still, I had plenty enough to occupy my mind so that I wouldn't go mad with the wondering until tomorrow night. We continued eating in silence, absorbed in our own thoughts. I had to admit that I was a little nervous about meeting Esme again tomorrow night with the suspicion that she was a huge part of the story that was becoming a huge part of my life. In fact, for the next three months, Kristen and Rob's story would be basically my entire life; a movie set was a small world after all. I knew that Esme, on some level, was involved with Kristen – she must have known her for her to have been at the funeral – and that made her an important person for me to get to know. I had to make a good impression on this woman if she was going to give me any information which would help me portray her in the best way possible. However, I couldn't appear like I was pumping her for information either because that was just plain rude. I wanted her to like me and trust me enough to give me information willingly, but beyond all of that, there was something about Esme that made me want her approval.

*

The obnoxious blaring from somewhere beside my head had just interrupted a very good and slightly erotic dream; it had to be destroyed. I flung out my arm in the general direction of the noise, but all it found was air and the blaring continued. Ugh. I swear it was getting louder instead of dying off. Weren't alarms supposed to stop after some point? Why was mine defective in the worst possible way? I sat up and opened my eyes to find that the reason my hand wasn't connecting with anything before was that I was waving it on the wrong side of my bed. I turned the horrendous noise off finally, but not before noticing that I couldn't go back to sleep because I was being picked up for work in forty five minutes and I still hadn't showered. I stumbled into my bathroom wondering why the hell I felt so damn tired before remembering exactly what had happened during last night's 'work time'.

Edward.

The boy was in some serious shit with me. The only thing that would save him from being killed with my bare hands was the fact that he had obviously transferred me from the couch to my bed when he left this morning and he set my alarm so that I wouldn't be late for work. Then again, he did set my alarm, which woke me up this morning. I had only had a maximum of three hours sleep last night because Edward had started talking about a movie that I just _had _to watch – and then mentioned that the original was actually better, but it was subtitled and it hadn't really been heard of here because the remake was such high quality. Of course if I _had _to see the first one, I obviously had to see the one he thought was better; I had to see the original. That was the reason that instead of going to sleep at a reasonable 10 or 11, I had drifted off to sleep sometime after two forty five. Add in the consumption of an undetermined amount of beers and it was a wonder that I actually bothered to get out of bed this morning, blaring horn alarm or not. Needless to say, Edward Cullen was not exactly my favourite person right now. If there was any justice in the world Edward would be feeling twice as bad as I did this morning. I stubbed my toe on the bed in my rush to get ready in time. Three times as bad.

*

As it turns out there was absolutely no justice in the world. When I got to the car (five minutes late might I add), Edward was already sitting there with a smile on his face looking like he'd just had a week long holiday. He was fresh, quite upbeat and there wasn't even a hint of fatigue in his face. Basically he looked much better than he had any right to after the night we'd had and the very little sleep that had happened. It may be childish to say that I wanted to hit him.

"I hate you right now," I snapped at him as I closed the door.

He looked at me, shock and then panic flittering across his face. I had to bite back a laugh at the realisation that Edward actually thought I was being serious. I doubled the force of my glare and kept the rest of my face neutral, playing this for as long as possible because I should not be the only one suffering after last night; especially since I had been a victim in the man's scheme to get out of working.

"What...why?" he spluttered after a few moments where all he could do was open and shut his mouth.

"Why?" I asked, my voice hard as steel. "Why the hell do you think?" Edward's eyebrows furrowed, no doubt trying to recall what he could possibly have done to offend me so much given that we had been on good terms when we both fell asleep only a few hours earlier. He looked positively cute, which was not a word that I would ever have used to describe Edward Cullen before. Physically, Edward could be described in many ways: good-looking, hot, sexy, smouldering, beautiful, handsome, attractive, but never cute – until now. I couldn't help the smile that pulled my lips upwards as these thoughts ran through my mind and in an instant, Edward realised that I was only kidding and the game was up. Damn.

"Is someone feeling a little rough this morning Bella?" he asked, his voice and his face smug. He went from looking cute to wearing an expression that I wanted to slap off his face. Apparently I felt rather violent when I was tired and slightly hung-over. I would have to remember that.

"Is someone looking to get hit this morning Edward?" I replied in a sickly sweet voice. Edward laughed, which made me even more annoyed with him, though you wouldn't know it from the way I smiled even more at the sound of his laughter. I hated the way his merriment was catching, even when I was trying with all my might to resist catching it.

Edward leaned closer to me and used his shoulder to gently shove me, as if doing so would break me out of the mood that I was currently in. "Come on Bella," he urged. "You can't deny that you had fun last night."

I could. I could completely deny that I enjoyed last night in any way. But I would be lying. I would be totally and completely lying and Edward would know. I failed to say anything and he smirked at me in a very knowing way; in a very Edward way. He had interpreted my silence correctly and knew very well that last night had been a night very well spent, though I was pretty sure that it would also have been very well spent if I had been sleeping for at least some of it. I refused to speak to him for the rest of the car journey even though he tried numerous times to get me to talk to him and to snap me out of the bad mood I was in. I wasn't cooperating. It wasn't really that I was in a bad mood; I just felt like hell and all I wanted to do was go back to bed, but instead I had to go to work and be at the top of my game. It didn't help that I knew I wouldn't be able to go to bed straight after work either because we had a dinner with Esme to go to, which I really didn't want to miss. However, at this rate I would be falling asleep into my soup. Ugh...why the hell didn't I just say no to Edward last night when he suggested a little break from the work?

*

I loved Edward Cullen. Truly. He was possibly the most amazing person on the face of the earth and I couldn't even remember ever being angry with him; he was extraordinarily wonderful. Then again this newfound feeling of goodwill towards Edward could have been because he had somehow managed to get me a three hour lunch break and then find me the most comfortable bed in the world so that I could rest and feel like a normal human being again. He had set my phone alarm to wake me up twenty minutes before I had to be back on set, but when the alarm went off there was no obnoxious beeping, but a song from the film that we had watched last night. Far from making me want to destroy my phone, the alarm put a smile on my face and made me laugh a little. I walked out of the room that I had been occupying for the past couple of hours and found him standing outside with a cup of coffee in his hands. Seriously, I freaking _loved_ this Cullen kid!

I took a sip of the coffee he bought for me and sighed a little. "You my friend are simply awesome," I tell him, standing on my tip toes to give him a friendly kiss on the cheek. I pulled back and laughed at the bewildered shock on his face and the way his mouth dropped open a little. I placed a hand on his chin to close his jaw. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that you'll catch flies like that?"

* * *

A/N: A very heavy conversation they had at the beginning...and a very flirty exchange towards the end. Bella actually kissing Edward without it being for the film? Okay, yes it was an innocent peck on the cheek after he did something incredibly sweet for her, but it's something right? Rosalie may or may not have something on Jasper. Edward watches 24? Who doesn't though right? This is actually a little shout out to a regular reviewer who has mentioned the series twice I think? Anyway...since I absolutely LOVE 24 too, I thought that I'd incorporate it into the story. I have changed the ending of the story a little because I didn't know how to finish this chapter...I'm not sure how this ending played out, but I kind of like the contrast to the beginning.

Okay...(long note, I know) thank you everyone for reading...those who have been doing so from the beginning and those who have only just joined in. An extra special THANK YOU VERY MUCH to everyone who reviews, especially those that do so for every chapter; I really do appreaciate it. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	21. Chapter 21 An Identity Too Many

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves. **

**Chapter 21: BPOV**

It was ten minutes to 7 and Edward was in my living room waiting for me as I rushed around my bedroom trying to get ready for the dinner that was supposed to be in 10 minutes – on the other side of the city. Yeah, we were going to be late and I was mortified because of it. I _abhorred_ being late for anything, especially when I was actually going somewhere important. This lapse in time keeping, however, was not my fault at all; it was all on Sue. Well, maybe not _all_ on Sue. Some of it was on the cast that were gossiping on set whom she overheard. If I thought Edward and I were in trouble before, it was nothing to the feeling of standing in front of Sue as she paced around me and questioned me about the nature of my relationship with Edward. I felt like I was a teenager who'd just gotten caught having sex with her boyfriend by her parents; I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

_Edward and I were walking out together in the direction of where the car usually stopped to pick us up after we were done for the day. I wanted to know where we were going to dinner because I wanted to know whether or not to dress up. Edward was laughing at my anxiety for tonight's meeting, which he thought to be ridiculous seeing as I'd already met Esme and she would never have asked to see me again if she didn't already like me. I guess logically, he was completely right, but I still couldn't help thinking that there was something_ more_ that hinged on this dinner; though I couldn't name what that was exactly. We were just about to step into the car when Sue called out my name from behind us. Edward and I stopped and looked at each other before turning to face our approaching director. I knew what was going through his mind; we couldn't possibly be getting shouted at again because although we'd both been pretty tired, our performances today were spot on. Sue stopped just a few feet shy of us and looked between us with an expression that she'd never worn before. _

"_Is everything alright Sue?" I asked when she didn't immediately say anything upon her arrival._

_She turned to Edward and looked at him for a beat longer than was usual, but didn't say anything. I could tell that Edward was both aware of – and puzzled by – her actions with the way his eyebrows furrowed and he shot me a quick glance full of question and slight panic. Sue turned to face me next and suddenly, I knew exactly how Edward felt just seconds ago._

"_I need to talk to you Bella," she said, her voice clipped. She had angled her body so that she was completely excluding Edward from the invitation. The message was quite clear to everyone there; Sue wanted to see me – _alone.

_I looked to Edward over Sue's head and I saw the bewilderment that I felt mirrored in his face. I raised an eyebrow at him in question, wondering whether this could possibly have anything to do with the three hour lunch that I'd taken this afternoon. I don't know how exactly Edward understood what I was trying to say, but the small shake of his head and shrug of his shoulders told me that he had understood. Obviously I had been silent for too long during my silent communication with Edward because Sue stepped back from where she had been standing to once again look between the two of us. She was reminding me a little of Alice. _

"_Is there a problem with talking to me now?" she asked, making it quite clear that if there was a problem on my side, there would be twice the problem on her end if I didn't give her the right answer._

_I shook my head. "Not at all." I turned to Edward. "I guess I'll see you later then."_

_He nodded, but didn't say anything before he turned and walked the few remaining feet to the waiting car. I watched the black vehicle driving away and wished like hell that I was on it instead of standing here about to have what I suspected was not going to be a pleasant conversation with my director. From Sue's serious demeanour, something was extremely wrong. When she wasn't working, she was usually quite light and teasing. At the moment, she was the very opposite of that. I felt like I was walking the plank as I followed her to her office._

_She closed the door behind us and told me to sit down, but instead of sitting down herself, she was pacing around behind me and the air of tension was so thick that I almost couldn't breathe because of it. There are certain moments in life when you know you're in deep shit. There's a feeling in the very depths of your stomach that's generally telling you to get the hell out of the situation you were in. It was pure survival instinct. Right in that moment, with Sue pacing behind me, I felt my heart rate increase and my stomach churn. My mind was going a hundred miles a minute and yet there were no thoughts discernable. My body was preparing to fight or flight even though I knew that I couldn't exactly do either if I wanted to keep my job._

_It felt like it was about an hour later when Sue finally came into my line of vision and spoke to me, but it was probably one a minute. "You and Edward have very good chemistry Bella," she told me, as she had done before. However, this time there was no hint of a compliment behind her words; she actually seemed like she was just speaking her thoughts out loud._

_I didn't answer and she did not need a reply._

"_It's been there from the beginning of course," she continued, still not staying in one place. "That's why I hired him." She stopped and looked at me. "Well that and because you insisted you wouldn't do the movie without him."_

_I bit my lip in order to prevent my demanding that she just get to the point she was trying to make already. She was acting like she was interrogating me and yes, she may have been my director, but she had absolutely no right to treat me like this. However, she had started to pace in a circle around me before I could utter a word and the feeling of intimidation this provoked kept me quiet for a little while longer. I kind of felt like I was in some weird 1930's detective movie, though of course we weren't at all dressed appropriately for the time period. _

"_You'd never met Edward before right?" she asked when she was in front of me once more._

_I shook my head. "I'd never even heard of Edward before."_

_Sue nodded. "It's odd," she pointed out. "The chemistry the two of you have, the time you two spend together, the closeness. It seems like you've known each other for a lot longer than you say you have."_

_Suddenly I knew exactly what Sue was trying to get at and I saw red. I couldn't believe that this was happening _again_ and hoped to god that Alice had not been the root of Sue's suspicions. "What are you trying to ask me Sue?" I demanded now. I didn't care that she was technically my superior and that it was basically career suicide to be pissy with your director; I got very bitchy and unreasonable when I was forced to be on the defensive._

"_Are you cheating on Jake with Edward Bella?" she asked quite bluntly._

_My mouth dropped open at the words that escaped her mouth. Was this a fucking joke? "Firstly Jake and I are no longer together," I told her. "Not that it's any of your business at all as my _director_." I emphasised the last word to highlight how very unprofessional she was being right now. I was seething with the knowledge that she had brought me here to intimidate me into giving her details about my personal life – details that she had absolutely no right to know._

"_Secondly, Edward and I are just friends and it is getting beyond ridiculous that we constantly have to defend the status of our relationship because we enjoy spending time together and we have good chemistry on screen. Isn't that the point? Aren't we supposed to be convincing in order to make the audience believe that we actually are the characters we're portraying?" Sue opened her mouth to interject, but I was on a roll and I wasn't going to stop for anyone. "The only reason Edward and I are close is because we've basically spent all our free time after rehearsals to do more rehearsing. We've worked damn hard so that when we eventually start filming we'll know exactly what we're doing and yet that's not enough? I can't even believe I'm sat here right now being forced to defend my relationship with my friend."_

_I had risen up out of my chair so that we were now more or less eye level with each other. "To be perfectly honest Sue you have no place asking me such personal questions. You may be friends with Jacob and we may know each other outside of work, but here, right now, you have absolutely no right to ask me whether I'm _cheating_ on my boyfriend and make me feel like I'm a damn criminal."_

_Sue had obviously had enough of not being able to get a word in edgewise because she flamed her hand on her dark wooden desk to shut me the hell up. I jumped, broken out of my rant and began to feel a little bit embarrassed about the tirade that I had given her; I was out of line and we both knew it._

"_I'm going to let it go that you've just been extremely insolent and disrespectful to me and my role as your boss Bella," Sue told me, her voice carefully calm even though her eyes were blazing with the fire that she undoubtedly wanted to released upon me. "You're right; I shouldn't have made you feel like you were being interrogated for doing something wrong and I shouldn't have phrased the question quite like that."_

_I opened my mouth to thank her and apologise profusely now that I had regained my mind, but her sharp look caused the words to die from my lips. "However, don't be under the false impression that you're relationship with Edward is not my concern. The two of you are under my direction for the film and every little thing that happens affects the rest of the cast and the movie. There is a lot of money in this film and a hell of a lot of people that will be pissed off if it fails because the two leads couldn't keep their clothes on."_

_I had never come so close to quitting a film in my life, but in that very moment, I wanted to walk out of Sue's office and never come back. The utter absurdity of the situation was beyond my comprehension. I didn't understand where the hell any of this was coming from when Sue should have been the one encouraging us to spend more time with each other in order to get used to each other's presence for filming. Instead, she was insulting me and heavily implying that I was sleeping with my co-star. My mind just stopped processing anything else as it tried to make sense of this situation._

"_Both Tyler and Mike saw the two of you outside of a motel room this lunch time," she finally explained. At last, the source of this madness was coming to light and I found that I was incredulous. Would people ever stop catching Edward and I in very compromising positions and jumping to conclusions without first talking to either of us? I wouldn't have been nearly as offended or defensive had Sue asked me about what Mike and Tyler had seen rather than asked me if I was cheating on Jacob. _

"_Edward was collecting me for the afternoon's scenes because I was asleep in that motel room – alone." I couldn't believe I had to explain this._

_Sue looked at me for several long moments as if trying to decide whether or not I was lying. I looked back at her without blinking; I wasn't lying. "And why exactly did you have to sleep this lunch time Bella? What happened last night?"_

_Well fuck. I couldn't exactly tell her that I had been kept up all night by Edward now could I? Not when I was trying to get myself out of the hole that my cast mates had apparently dug for me. Edward had told me that he hadn't said anything about my needing to sleep at all this lunch time, merely asked Sue to rearrange some of the scenes so that I would have a block off, giving her some excuse about needing to talk to her about them and discuss his 'motivation'. I couldn't believe that Sue had bought it at all because of the cheesy line that he'd used, but it had gotten me a couple of hours more sleep so I couldn't exactly tease him too much about it._

"_What happened last night is personal," I told her. She raised her eyebrows and I knew that she was placing me with Edward last night and thinking the very worst thing. "Needless to say it has nothing to do with Edward whatsoever and what I do in my free time, Sue without the rest of the cast involved and in the privacy of my apartment, shouldn't concern anyone else involved with the film."_

_Sue and I looked at each other for a few long moments, neither of us wanting to be the first to look away because it was a sign of weakness and giving in. Finally, she cleared her throat and started walking behind her desk. I did a little mental dance; I'd won that round at the very least._

_Sue let out a long, heavy sigh as she took a seat opposite of where I was still standing. "Look Bella, I believe you about your relationship with Edward, but you should know that you two are quickly becoming the talk of the set."_

_Anger rushed through me at that. "I'm sure it's not helped when I'm dragged into your office and accused of cheating on my boyfriend." I couldn't get over that._

"_Look, I am sorry about accusing you of cheating on Jake," Sue said and this time her voice was much gentler and she really did look sorry. "I know that was unprofessional, but you have to understand that he's a good friend of mine and I don't want to see him be made a fool of, or hurt."_

_I nodded. I did understand that, but everyone seemed to be forgetting that I too was Jake's friend and that I didn't want to see him get hurt either. I certainly did not want to be the one that caused the hurt. She dismissed me soon after her explanation, but I knew from that moment on that things would Sue would never be the same again. The camaraderie that we'd shared before was gone and as soon as this movie was finished, I would never work with her again – whether or not she was friends with Jacob. _

*

I was still seething when I entered my apartment only fifteen minutes ago and slammed every single door in the place just to show how angry I was – even though there wasn't a single other person there to witness it. I took a very quick shower and was about to rapidly blast my hair with a hair dryer before Edward knocked on my door. I hadn't yet told him what had happened; hadn't given him an opportunity to ask in fact. I opened the door for him quickly and proceeded to smash around the apartment and take my frustrations out on my very innocent drawers, cupboards and hair styling appliances. Edward definitely sensed my mood and stayed out of the way, staying fairly quiet. I didn't really know how to explain to him what had transgressed between Sue and I without bursting forth into an angry tirade, or without being so embarrassed that I blushed a fire hydrant red colour. I wondered whether Edward was getting the same kind of questions and accusations that I was getting from his nearest and dearest? I didn't think he was; or if he did, he handled it a hell of a lot better than I was right now because Edward rarely seemed angry.

I opened the door to my room just in time to hear him say goodbye to someone and put his cell phone away. He turned his head when he heard my door open and smiled at me, which caused my lips to pull upwards involuntarily. I shook my head. No wonder I spent so much time with Edward – he always seemed to be able to pull me out of the many funks I'd been in since we'd known each other.

"Hey," he greeted. "You look nice."

I was a little surprised at his comment and smiled at him for it, but then felt the tell-tale signs of a blush coming when heat spread through my face. I looked down at the outfit I was wearing, pretending to evaluate it and shrugged. "Thanks." It was nothing special really, just some dark jeans, black flats and sleeveless top with some fancy pattern across the top. Edward had definitely seen me in something similar, but I guess compared with this morning, I looked like I was getting ready to go on the red carpet and it was nice to get a compliment. Especially if that was a compliment from your very attractive male friend. "I'm sorry about us being so late."

He shook his head and stood up, heading for the door at the same time that I was. He didn't look too bad himself in dark jeans, a light blue button down shirt and real shoes on his feet instead of the sneakers that I could have sworn were glued onto his feet sometimes. Or maybe he looked like a freaking billboard ad for how to do smart/casual perfectly, but that was semantics. "Don't worry about it. I was just talking to Esme then actually and they're running late themselves because of some wedding stuff that they got caught up in. They're called the restaurant and told them we'd be arriving at 7:30 instead."

I pulled a face. "I hate being late."

"I know, but we're not," Edward reassured me. We started walking down the stairs, both preferring to use them instead of the elevator whenever possible. "What did Sue want to talk to you about?"

I rolled my eyes at this question, not because of the question itself but because of what had happened. I felt like I'd had this conversation with Edward before, just replacing Sue's name with Alice's. "She was giving me the Spanish Inquisition about the nature of our relationship."

Edward stopped walking just as we were going through the door. "Seriously?"

I looked back at him and nodded, which was apparently his cue to start walking with me again down the street to catch a cab to the restaurant. "Apparently someone saw us outside the motel room this lunch time and the cast gossip is that we're doing the horizontal dance between scenes."

Beside me Edward made a noise that was somewhere between choking and laughing. "What in the ten minutes between me finishing off one scene and getting back to do another?"

"Someone obviously doesn't think much of your stamina Edward," I teased before snapping my mouth shut. Did I really just say that? Me, who didn't like talking about sex with Edward? My mind raced trying to find a way I could change the subject of this already uncomfortable conversation. "Why is it always me who gets the third degree about the state of our friendship anyway?"

Edward snorted. "Well if you're getting the third degree then I'm definitely getting the fourth and fifth, though maybe not from anyone in the movie...yet."

I wondered if Rosalie was giving Edward a hard time about the two of us and how it had been affecting their relationship if she thought something was going on with us. I had finally come to the conclusion that even if Edward and Rosalie were involved beyond being best friends, they definitely were not exclusive. I had spent many hours pondering the enigma that was their relationship (not continuously, obviously) and deduced that they were far too close for him to ever cheat on her. Edward really wasn't the type of guy who cheated on a girl anyway, not from what I knew of him. He was far too quick to shoulder all the guilt in the world for him to cope with something like that on top. I had stopped trying to guess at their connection because really I was being hypocritical. If Edward and I could just be friends then surely he could be just friends with Rosalie too – no matter how incredible they did look together.

I wanted to ask him what exactly he'd been up against and what had been said, but before I could Edward spotted a cab on the other side of the street and hailed it, distracting both of us from the conversation. Once we were actually in the bright yellow vehicle, I started to feel very nervous once more about the meeting I was going to have with Esme. It was a little funny that I was so nervous because I had met the woman before and she'd been the nicest person who wouldn't make anyone feel purposely intimidated. However, my brain was determined to be irrational and nothing I could tell myself stopped me from being nervous. This woman may have held the key to my really understanding the girl that I was supposed to be playing and may give me insight into the story that I was part of trying to bring to life. Kristen's life had been quite public. She had grown up as part of the social elite of Manhattan and had married into an equally powerful and rich family; there was no doubt that the public knew who she was. However, it was exactly because of whom she was that it was so hard to find anyone who really knew her.

We were at the restaurant faster than I would have thought and I was glad to find that we were about five minutes earlier than our 7:30 reservation. It was a nice establishment and I was glad that I hadn't gone straight from work to this dinner because I don't think I would have been allowed in through the door. Esme and Carlisle, we were informed, were already at the table and I wondered whether there had been any hold up on their part at all or whether they'd just said that to make Edward and I feel better for being late. I really hoped that wasn't the case.

Carlisle and Esme were too involved in one another to notice us before we spotted them and once again the sight of a couple so obviously in love and meant to be together caused a slight twinge of pain to go through me. I had replied to Jacob's email last night whilst Edward was writing notes on one of the scenes we were supposed to be reading and I guess it had stirred old memories. If I were being perfectly honest though, I doubted that Jacob and I could have held a candle to the way Carlisle and Esme's utter devotion to each other shone through the room. They weren't being gross about their affection for one another, but it was pretty easy to see that the rest of the room could have gone up in flames around them without either one noticing. On the aesthetic front, they looked amazing together too; so much so that even though I was dressed in a perfectly reasonable manner for the place, I kind of felt like I should have made a little bit more of an effort.

Edward coughed to get their attention when we got closer to the table and I had to smile at his slightly disturbed expression; it must not have been pleasant to see his brother like this. I know that seeing Sam and Leah all lovey-dovey in Seattle had also kind of made me a little nauseous.

"Oh, hello Edward, Bella," Carlisle greeted whilst he stood up. Esme followed suit. "I didn't see the two of you come in."

Edward gave Esme a hug and a kiss on the cheek and hugged his older brother. "I thought as much," he said. "It's kind of hard to see the rest of the restaurant in Esme's eyes."

Neither Esme nor Carlisle looked embarrassed at all by the fact that Edward had called them out, but instead laughed at him. Esme's eyes turned from Edward's face to meet mine and I held my breath, not knowing what to say to her and whether I should say anything at all. Edward didn't need to introduce us because we had met before, but I didn't want to be overly familiar with her. The smile that she gave me eased the anxiety that had been building inside of me and I smiled back, still a little uncertain, but a lot more confident about the fact that she did actually want me to be here and it wasn't just Edward's insistence.

"Hello Bella," Esme said as she gestured for everyone to sit down. I reached out for my chair and found that Edward was already pulling it out for me; I smiled at him in thanks. "It's very nice to meet you again. I'm so glad you could make it."

"Thank you for asking me to join you," I replied sincerely. "I'm sorry that we're late."

Carlisle shook his head and started pouring the bottle of wine that was already in the centre of the table for everyone – including me. "You're not. We'd only been here for about five minutes ourselves before you arrived." I raised my eyebrows and looked pointedly at the bottle of wine. He noticed and laughed. "I asked for this as soon as we entered the building," he explained. "After they day we've had, we couldn't wait until you came to have a drink."

Everyone around the table laughed and very quickly, I was feeling far more comfortable now and we all embarked on some usual chit-chat in between studying the menu and waiting for the food we'd decided on to arrive. After some prodding by Edward and I, Carlisle and Esme elaborated on why they had been driven to drink at the end of their day. It seemed that planning a wedding wasn't the most peaceful process in the world, especially when everyone around them seemed to want the complete opposite on what they had decided upon together. It amazed me to find out that Carlisle had actually been more active in the wedding preparations than Esme had been because I had known other grooms that didn't know anything about the wedding other than who the bride was and when and where they had to show up. Sometimes they didn't even know those things. It surprised me to learn that their wedding was going to be very soon – apparently just over a couple of weeks away. It blew me away when they both invited me to it.

"Obviously if you have other plans then we understand," Esme said when I had failed to give them an answer after about a minute of just staring. "We know it's short notice."

I shook my head quickly to deny that I had any plans and to try and kick start my brain into working so that I could give them an actual answer. "No, I'd love to come," I assured her. "I was just surprised at the invitation."

"Well, we were just going to assume that you'd be Edward's date," Carlisle said. Edward choked on the wine he'd been sipping beside me. I guess it may not have been Rosalie that was giving him a hard time about our friendship after all. "But then we thought we'd give you your own invitation anyway, just so you'd have better options."

"Geez thanks Carlisle," Edward said dryly after having recovered from his choking fit.

I chuckled. "Thank you." Carlisle handed me the white envelope that housed their wedding invitations and I saw that my name was embossed onto the thick envelope in very elegant calligraphy. I was truly overwhelmed by the invitation to one of the most significant days in their lives because these two people didn't really know me and they had only met me once or twice before. They were so accepting and inclusive of me that I could barely comprehend it. I wondered whether Edward had any influence over their decision to invite me, but then shook those thoughts away because I wasn't giving either Carlisle or Esme credit for just being genuinely warm-hearted people.

The food came whilst I was thinking this and there was a few minutes of silence as we all started to eat, tempted by the sumptuous smells the plates was wafting and the way they look nestled together in the middle of the plate. I hadn't thought myself particularly hungry until I tasted the soup that was my starter; as I swallowed the hot, slightly spicy liquid, I realised I hadn't eaten since about ten that morning because I'd spent the majority of lunch asleep.

I was about half-way through the bowl before me when Esme spoke again. "There's probably something you should know before the wedding Bella."

I looked up at her with curiosity, every thought I'd had driven away by the taste of the soup in my mouth and the hunger that it had made me aware of. If I hadn't been concentrating so much on food and my appetite, I would have noticed that both Carlisle and Edward had stiffened and stopped eating. However, this was not the case and so I really had no inkling as to what would come out of Esme's mouth.

Esme looked at me for a moment before taking a deep breath and saying three words that caused me to drop the spoon in my hand and forget that food existed at all. "I'm Kristen's cousin."

Suddenly, I remembered that the purpose of this dinner wasn't just to satiate my need for food, but to find out the mystery surrounding Esme. I looked at her. Then I looked at Carlisle. Finally I looked at Edward and he gave me a little nod in answer to the question I hadn't realised I was asking: _'Is this for real?'_ I straightened up and drained the wine that my glass held. I looked at Esme again, but all the questions that I'd had for her were no longer stored in my brain and I could think of absolutely nothing to say to the woman I had been so anxious to meet and figure out. I didn't know what I thought Esme would say to me tonight, but I just had not expected this at all. Maybe it was the way in which she'd said it rather than what she'd actually told me because of course I knew she had to be close to Kristen; that's why I'd been so nervous about meeting her in the first place. Still, now that it was confirmed that she was actually _related_ to the woman I was playing, I just didn't know what to say.

"There's two reasons really why I thought I should tell you," Esme continued when it was clear that I was going to be unable to take part in this conversation for a while. "The first is because of the film that you're doing, obviously. The second sort of ties in with that because you may see some people at the wedding that'll have very familiar names and very familiar faces."

Holy shit.

Still no words escaped from my mouth and after a while Esme just nodded her head and went back to eating the remainder of her salad; Carlisle followed suit.

Edward however, scraped his seat back and stood up, grabbing my hand and taking me along with him. I was still in too much a state of shock to offer any kind of resistance to his actions or question what he was doing. "Excuse us a sec," Edward said to his brother and Esme. I just went along with him.

He walked us over to near the back of the restaurant, just beyond where the restrooms were located and looked me dead in the eye; probably trying to work out if I'd suffered some sort of absence seizure. I would have smiled at this thought had I not still been too overwhelmed with shock to feel any other emotion.

"Are you alright Bella?" Edward asked, his voice laced with concern.

Yes, I was alright. I was absolutely floored with the revelation that I was having dinner with the cousin of the dead woman I was playing in a movie, which had apparently caused me to lose the ability to form words, but other than that I was perfectly alright. Of course, I couldn't actually _say_ any of these things to Edward so I just settled for a nod.

Edward now looked puzzled. "So why aren't you speaking?"

I shrugged.

Edward looked exasperated with having a one-sided conversation and even I was getting a little sick of myself not being able to form words. I was still reeling from the information and the implications. If Esme was Kristen's cousin and she knew about the film, it meant that the story was actually real. The rumours about the two of them, to some degree at least, were true and they had shared a love that consumed and destroyed them both. I was also, in a very short amount of time, going to be meeting people that were integral to the movie and the real-life occurrences it was based on. Then the guilt began to seep in as I realised the reason that Edward had said Esme may need moral support tonight; I now looked pretty identical to Kristen. Esme had been sitting opposite a girl who very much resembled her dead cousin; it was a wonder she could look at me. All these thoughts completely over-shadowed all my previous curiosity about Esme, Kristen and their lives, so much so that I had absolutely nothing to say now. I didn't know where to start and how to make conversation to the woman who had told me something that she must have kept extremely guarded for years.

I didn't know how to say any of this to Edward, which was why I once again didn't say anything at all. He stood in front of me for a few more moments no doubt willing me to speak. After a while, he conceded defeat with a heavy sigh.

"Look Bella, I know it's got to be a lot to take in. I know when she told me about it I think I just sat there gaping at her for a full ten minutes, trying to decide whether she was kidding." I smiled at this, picturing his face to be much like it had been this afternoon when I surprisingly kissed him on the cheek. I still don't really know what came over me in that moment; I guess I was just full of enormously good feelings towards Edward. "If you can't process it all right now that's completely fine. It's not like this is the only chance you'll have of speaking to her. Just _relax_."

I rolled my eyes at this. It was easy for Edward to tell me to relax when he'd probably had weeks to come to terms with the knowledge that Esme was related to Kristen. He caught my expression and grinned at me, causing me to smile in answer. As he led me back to the table, I decided that I was going to take his advice – and the fact that there was wine at our table was definitely going to help me do that. Carlisle and Esme didn't comment on our absence at all, but I did notice the silent communication pass between the brothers just before Edward took his seat once more.

After my little freak out, the rest of dinner proceeded as any normal dinner between friends would. There was more delicious food, an additional bottle of wine consumed by everyone, a lot more conversation and a lot of laughs. I had a very, very good time and the discomfort of earlier on in the evening was a mere unpleasant memory by the end of it. Esme didn't mention her cousin or her family again, but I did catch the looks that she gave me at times when she thought I was too absorbed in either the conversation or the food to notice. They spoke of melancholy, of loss and both the pain and the joy of remembering; it was slightly heart-breaking. It must have been something akin to torture to see a person who looked so like someone you had loved and lost. I didn't know whether I acted like Kristen when I was my normal self, but I knew I looked enough like her to remind her cousin of the times they'd shared and the conversations they'd had. I was only glad that I wasn't wearing the contacts that I would have to wear for filming yet – surely that would have been too much even for someone as poised and put together as Esme. She offered me her number at the end of the night, urging me to call her should I have anything to ask her about what she'd told me today. Again, I could do nothing but nod, take the card and say thanks; I really didn't understand what had come over me.

I may have had no questions for Esme, but as soon as Edward and I got into a cab, I had a tonne for him. I asked him when he found out about Esme, what she knew about the film, if she approved of the film, if he'd met anyone else in her family. Basically I asked him every question that even half crossed my mind and because he was Edward, he humoured me. He may have rolled his eyes so much that I was afraid they were going to point at the back of his head permanently and he may have laughed at some of the questions I asked, but he answered each one patiently.

I had to admit that sometimes it wasn't just other people that questioned my friendship with Edward; I did too. It wasn't that I thought we were going to have an illicit affair on set or anything; it was just that in a very short space of time we had become a rather big part of each other's lives. That was true, of course, for anyone you did a film with – the set was a microcosm of the world at large – but there was something more with Edward. I had gotten to meet and know a lot of important people in his life and we had both shared something very personal with each other. I still didn't think that people had to reveal all their secrets to be friends, but maybe you did have to if you wanted the friendship to last; to become deeper and to grow. Edward and I had done that and the results were right in front of my eyes; I was a part of his world now and not just the one which he inhabited whilst we were filming. In my mind, Edward was also part of my reality, part of the life that I would resume when I got back to LA and away from the pretentions of the film set, but I didn't know whether I had made this clear to him. I had been asking him several questions throughout the night, but the question I had to ask myself was how did I make him see that I wanted him to be part of _my_ real life?

*

**EPOV (Thursday morning)**

Not for the first – or even the second – time since coming to New York almost two weeks ago, I found myself waking up confused, disorientated and staring up at a very familiar ceiling with a very uncomfortable floor underneath me. It seemed that I had once again fallen asleep on Bella's floor after staying awake with her until the obscenely early hours of the morning. By the feel of my head as I turned it to find the source of the annoying vibration, I also realised that we'd drunk far too much last night. I slid my phone open to turn the alarm off, but realised just in time that it was actually a phone call when I heard Rosalie's voice calling out my name on the other end of the line.

"Hello?" I whispered, sitting up. I looked over at Bella to see if her sleeping state had been disturbed by my vibrating cell phone; it hadn't. I moved to get up slowly and walked to the kitchen as Rosalie talked.

Rosalie's tone was agitated. "Why the hell are you whispering?" she asked. "And where are you?"

Shit. There was absolutely no way I could lie to Rose about where I was and where I'd spent the night, which meant that I would have to tell her that I'd spent the night at Bella's. Fantastic; she wouldn't tease me about this at all. "Er, I'm on my way back to the apartment now." I decided that procrastination was the key to this whole thing. I needed some time to find a way to explain this situation that would result in as little teasing as possible.

Rosalie was not willing to play ball with me. "How does that answer either of those two questions I asked?"

I wasn't prepared to discuss this on the phone. "I'll see you in about five minutes Rose." Shit. If she hadn't guessed before where I could possibly be, the fact that I would be back at the apartment in such a short space of time would definitely clue her in.

I ended the call before she could say anything more and went back to the living room area to see if Bella was awake; she was still peacefully sleeping. I walked over to her and watched her sleep for a little while, amused by the cute faces she would pull from time to time and the incomprehensible noises she would make with them. Bella, sometimes a little troubled and very quick to go into defensive mode when awake, was completely at peace and unguarded when she was asleep; it was nice to observe. Eventually, I started to feel both a little creepy and a little anxious that Rosalie would come down and start knocking on the door and so I picked Bella up carefully and carried her to her bedroom. There was only about an hour and a half before we needed to be at work, but there was no reason for her to spend that time on a too small sofa when she could spend it in her comfortable bed. I made sure to set her alarm in time so that she could have a quick shower before we had to be ready for the car.

Rosalie was sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen when I came in, two cups of coffee already ready before her. She looked up and smirked as I came into the kitchen area, eyeing me up and down and no doubt taking in the fact that the clothes I still had on were the same ones she saw me walk out of the apartment in yesterday morning.

"Well, well, well," she said slowly, a wicked gleam shining in her bright blue eyes. "Look what the cat dragged in."

I sat down opposite of her and took a careful sip of the steaming hot liquid before me, choosing not to reply for the moment. I had decided, on my way down that I was going to let her actually make the accusation first before I said anything to defend myself. If I jumped in too early, I could make matters worse either by revealing where I was (just in case she didn't know) or by getting far too defensive to be believed in my innocence.

"Not speaking Ed?" Rosalie asked, eyebrows furrowed as if she was actually worried by my silence. "Bella got your tongue?"

I choked on my coffee, which made Rosalie cackle uncontrollably. "What?" I spluttered when I recovered, as if that was going to convince her that she was wrong.

"You're far too bloody easy to read Edward," Rosalie commented, still chuckling to herself. "You come in here looking like you've been caught sneaking out by your parents and then one mention of the girl's name and you're losing all your cool." She shook her head. "And here I always thought you were kind of smooth with the ladies." She accompanied the word smooth with an appropriate hand movement.

I gave her the dirtiest look I could muster, which – considering that I'd had about two hours of sleep on a very uncomfortable floor – was quite venomous, even if I do say so myself. Rosalie however, just laughed off my rather sad attempt at keeping her quiet. "Did you get up especially early this morning just to take the piss Rosalie?"

She nodded. "Yes, because I have nothing better to do with my life than to make fun of you about yours." She was being sarcastic, of course, but she was rather deadpan about it instead of making it particularly obvious.

I decided that I hadn't had enough sleep at all to be exchanging sarcastic remarks and playful insults with Rosalie right now, especially when I could have nearly an extra hour's sleep before I had to wake up to get ready for work. "Well, if that's the case then I really would like to get some sleep now. Good night." I turned to go to my bedroom and collapse on the bed that she had needlessly left.

Rosalie obviously didn't think I needed sleep though because she called out on me to wait. "Well obviously you didn't spend the night having sex with her," was the first thing that came out of her mouth when I stopped walking; I started back towards the bedroom. "Sorry! Look, I was just worried that you weren't here when I got back this morning."

_That_ made me stop and turn around. "You only got back to the apartment this morning?"

Rosalie nodded. "About twenty minutes ago in fact."

I walked back over to where she was still standing, her coffee being held in both hands. "Where the hell have _you_ been?"

"I told you. I was chasing something up about Jasper."

I looked at her incredulously. "And that took all night?"

She shrugged. "Kind of."

I looked at her questioningly, inviting her to expand on her extremely unsatisfactory answers.

She put the mug of coffee down and sat down opposite of me, leaning forward to lean on the counter. "So, when you went to work yesterday morning, I pretty much spent my entire day trying to get in contact with anyone back in LA that knows Jasper. At first I wasn't getting anywhere at all. Everyone he employs at the bar only really know him as their boss. They like him and may go out for drinks occasionally, but they've never been to his house and they didn't even know that he was in New York until I called."

"What?" Obviously Jasper was hiding a lot of things from a lot of people – even the most insignificant detail of where he would be for a few days. This mystery was getting weirder.

Rosalie nodded in agreement with what I hadn't even said out loud. "Anyway, I speak to the guy that's acting as temporary manager and he's someone that doesn't even know Jasper. He told me that he was hired by some agency a week ago and that he was told that his time at the bar was 'undetermined'."

"What?!"

Rosalie nodded again and spoke quickly. "So, I start calling around mutual friends, people that Jasper's introduced us to over the months we've known him – even people he'd tried to set me up with. I think I must have phoned half of LA and found out that our friend Jasper has a lot of people that know who he is without knowing him _at all_." This time it was me nodding in agreement because at this very moment, I felt like I was one of those people. "It wasn't until I started to call around his ex girlfriends that I _finally_ heard something worth my interest."

Rosalie paused for dramatic effect, taking a very long drink of her coffee whilst I waited on the edge of my seat (literally) for her to continue. She really did have a flair for the dramatic, this one; it's a wonder she didn't become an actress herself. Well, not exactly a wonder; she abhorred the superficiality of the business and the way that people thought they knew you and owned you because they saw you on some TV show or film. I had tried to tell her that not all actors lived like that; that some could just go quietly about their business and do their jobs. She countered by saying that those were also the people who had to take second or third jobs to support their 'craft' because the only real people that made any money exchanged their lives for it. I didn't have a rebuttal for that.

Finally, she saw it fit to return to her narrative. "I was talking to Tia, do you remember her?" I nodded; I did indeed. Tia and Jasper had been together for about a year and a half when Rose and I met them and they split up two weeks later because Tia wanted something that Jasper could not give her. "Well, at first she was pretty much only telling me things I already knew, but then she mentioned something very curious. Apparently, she found a passport with Jasper's picture in it, but with the name Benjamin Ross."

My jaw hit the counter top and my eyes widened as much as they could without my eyeballs coming out of the sockets. Rosalie took in my utter amazement at this piece of news and nodded her head in agreement of my reaction; she was obviously just as surprised when she heard it.

"Benjamin Ross?" My voice was about an octave higher than normal.

"Yeah," Rosalie confirmed. "Tia asked him about it and he told her that it was an inside joke between him and his college buddies and that they all had one. She said the story he told her about the passport was pretty funny actually, but for a moment she was a little worried about him being on the run or something."

On the run? Shit, maybe life was more like all those conspiracy movies than people would have you believe. Who the hell had two fucking passports in different names? I didn't know what kind of college prank would have a bunch of people breaking the law and having a separate identity. A fake driver's license was quite standard for getting alcohol before actually being of age, but passports? This thing with Jasper was getting more and more mysterious as time went on and instead of getting cleared up, everything was getting more muddled up. We had thought we knew Jasper and then found out he was hiding something from us. Now we were finding out that we may not even know they guy's real name? What the fuck was all of that about? What the hell was going on here?

I asked Rosalie more about what she'd been doing with the rest of her night because obviously the phone calls wouldn't have taken her out of the apartment or occupied her time entire night. She told me that once she found out about the second passport and the second name, she'd performed a 'Google' search on both names. There was nothing useful to be found on the internet in regards to the enigma that was now Jasper's very existence, so she tried a different tactic all together. Rosalie went out and spoke to some private detectives, asking them about why someone would want a second passport and how they could acquire one. As I listened to her recount her adventures last night, it struck me as completely surreal and I felt as if there were two movies being made in New York right now and only one of them I was aware of a script for.

When she'd finished telling me about convincing a PI to let her follow them on a night's work so she could ask more questions and make some contacts (the advantage of being a stunning woman) we looked at each other with exactly the same question running through our minds.

Who the fuck was Jasper Whitlock?

*

I didn't tell Bella about the latest developments with Jasper because neither Rosalie nor myself thought it best to involve anyone else until we knew more about what the hell was going on, which wasn't looking too promising to be honest. Neither of us believed that Jasper was some kind of mastermind criminal who was hiding from the law, nor did we think he was some kind of government spy with multiple identities necessary for his survival. The only thing was, we couldn't come up with any more plausible explanations than these either and so we were once again at a dead end, with a greater mystery to solve and no idea where to start again. Bella didn't seem to be in a particularly good mood anyway when she came downstairs into the car and at first it was because I thought she'd been insulted by my leaving without waking her up; after all, it was kind of my fault that she'd been awake until this morning. However, it was only actually because she wasn't feeling her best that she was so snappy. Apparently three hours of sleep and a semi hang-over did not a happy Bella make.

Her exhaustion was quite apparent throughout the morning, though she didn't let it affect any of the scenes that we were doing. In between though, all signs of life would drain from her and you could practically feel waves of fatigue rolling off her. The girl was going to collapse on set if she didn't get a power nap of some kind. I decided to talk to Sue about it. Luckily, a few of the scenes today didn't involve Bella, but they were kind of spaced out throughout the afternoon. It was one scene without Bella, one scene without. I decided to ask Sue to change it up a little so that the three scenes without Bella could be done back to back instead; giving Bella about three hours free to sleep.

Sue wasn't happy about my suggestion at first because of the number of people it could inconvenience, but I pressed her, saying something about being unsure of the mood of these scenes and how they differed from each other. The three scenes were all pretty similar on the surface – they were meant to be. In each of them Rob was going through the process of writing and recording his songs and the way that each scene was so very like the other, but also very different starkly contrasted the person he was with the person he comes to be. It was all very artistic and deep and it would come out extremely well once it was all edited together if I didn't completely fuck it up. However, I persuaded Sue that I didn't really get what was going on and it would be easier for me if we did it all together so we could talk about it. After about twenty minutes of being at my most charming, she finally gave in. Now all I had to do was find somewhere for Bella to sleep. That was achieved in a relatively short amount of time during the next break between scenes; all it took was a call to the nearest motel and it was done.

"Edward, honestly I think I may be too tired to eat lunch," Bella protested when I told her we were going off the set for lunch. "I may fall asleep on you."

"Promises, promises Bella," I teased.

She didn't answer back, which just reflected exactly how worn out she really was; Bella always had to have the last word. "Why can't we just stay on the set? I could catch a quick nap in one of the beds they've set up for someone's room."

"We've been on set all morning," I told her, ushering her into the awaiting car.

"We're actors," she argued. "It's what we do." Her voice was close to being whiny, but instead of it annoying me, I just found it incredibly endearing, like I was getting a glimpse of the child Bella.

I put my arm around her in the back of the car to cajole her into being quiet and just going with the flow. "I promise Bella you'll like this far more than being back on set."

She didn't say anything, but made a 'hrmph' kind of noise before resting her head on my shoulder and finally doing what she had been threatening to do all morning; falling asleep. The motel was about ten minutes walk away from the set, but because Bella was so tired I thought it best to drive there. She was zonked out on my shoulder before the car even pulled out of lot and didn't wake up at all even as I carried her to the room that would be her sanctuary for the next few hours. The motel was a lot nicer than other motels I had stayed at and I was grateful for this as I laid Bella down on the soft white sheets that were spread over quite a comfortable looking mattress. I was very tempted to lie down with her because she wasn't the only one who hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep, but I had work to do, so went back with just a final look back at the entirely captivating sleeping form of my co-star and friend.

Friend.

Yes. Bella was a good friend and that was why I had gone to this much effort to give her this. Friends did this sort of thing all the time – selfless actions defined friendships right? Yes, Bella was a very good friend of mine. _We_ were very good friends with each other.

*

_What the hell was going on? _That was the dominant thought in my mind as the car pulled away from a stunned looking Bella and quite an angry looking Sue. I didn't have a good feeling about the conversation that they were going to have, mostly due to the rather hostile attitude our director was exuding. It hadn't seemed like Bella knew what was going on either and when I looked back, I saw the longing expression on her face as the car sped away. I hoped to god that no one had seen Bella and I at the motel that afternoon because quite apart from looking a little bit suspect, Sue wouldn't appreciate being lied to about why I had wanted to do all of my scenes together. Then again if she had found out, wouldn't she want to be talking to me instead of Bella? I sighed and rested my head on the rest behind me. Their conversation may not have had anything to do with me at all; Bella and Sue had known each other for a while and the world didn't revolve around me. Sometimes I had to agree with both Carlisle and Rosalie; I internalised far too much.

Speaking of Rosalie, she had been texting me all day with updates as to the Jasper situation, but she wasn't getting anywhere fast. The second passport had been interesting, but she couldn't get any more information on the name that had been used because there were a _lot_ of Benjamin Rosses in the US. She had talked about going back to LA and maybe using Jasper's spare key to see if she could get a glimpse of the passport herself – maybe it would give her more information. However we both nixed that idea as soon as it was put out there; investigating your friend and the cloud of mystery around him was one thing, but abusing his trust in you in order to do it. Besides it would be quite mad of Rosalie to fly down to LA for one afternoon just to do that. The last I'd heard from her was that she was going to try and 'befriend' someone from the passport authority so that they may be able to offer her tips on how to track one down. I didn't really understand how the hell one tracked a passport down, but I just told Rose to be careful not to get arrested and let her go on with her investigating. I was pretty sure that she was getting a much bigger thrill out of this than most people and began to think that maybe a career in international espionage wasn't so far-fetched for her after all.

Not surprisingly, I was completely alone when I got into the apartment. It was already 6:00 and I doubted that Bella and Sue would be finished in time for us to make the 7 o'clock dinner that had already been arranged. I had tried to call both Carlisle and Esme in the car, but it had gone straight to answer machine, a pattern that was repeated when I tried again. I knew that they were currently rushing all over town to get everything settled for the wedding that definitely now taking place in just over two weeks. I had gotten the go ahead from Sue just this afternoon because we weren't scheduled to be shooting that weekend at all. I was thankful to have an entire two days off because something told me that I would spend Sunday recovering from Saturday night. The proximity of the wedding date meant not only did Carlisle and Esme have to step up in their planning and decision making, but I was now getting rather nervous about the best man speech that I had to write. I had started thinking about it when Carlisle first asked me to do the honours, but because of everything that had happened after, I got a little distracted and it was put on the back burner for a while. Now, with everything set to go it was once again at the forefront of my mind.

It wasn't that I was struggling for things to say about my brother or about the relationship between he and Esme; it was that I was struggling for the right _way_ in which to say the things that I remembered and the things that I had observed. There was no doubt about the fact that Esme and Carlisle were made for each other; even people who saw them on the street could have seen that. They complimented each other in a way that I have never seen before and it was interesting to behold. We lived in an age where true love and happily ever after were both the stuff of fairy tales and fiction. Nothing lasted forever anymore; everything was transitional. Yet here were two people who wanted to prove that love did last forever, that it was constant and never ending and I think they did prove that; every single time you saw them together. Was that too sentimental and deep for a best man speech? Should I go for a joke at the beginning? I didn't know and I didn't know how much of mine and Carlisle's personal childhood experiences I should include also because I didn't know how much the guests would know about them. I shook my head and headed for the shower; being the best man was already proving to be a rather difficult job and I hadn't even started to think about the bachelor party yet.

I turned up at Bella's at 6:45 hoping that she was back and yet knowing that we still wouldn't get to dinner on time. I heard her stomping to the door and knew immediately that whatever talk they'd been having hadn't just been a conversation between two friends. I wondered briefly if Bella would still be in the mood for the dinner, but when she opened the door all wondering – all thought of any kind actually – stopped. Standing in front of me was a naked Bella. Well, okay no, she had a towel around her but her hair was wet enough for me to surmise – even in my freshly lobotomised state – that she'd just gotten out of the shower. This meant that underneath the towel that stopped mid-thigh was nothing. Absolutely nothing. I swallowed thickly and was still staring at the spot that she had occupied for no longer than it took to blink when she had already returned to her bedroom. I couldn't move. I was paralysed by the image that I was pretty sure had been burned into my retinas and somewhere in my distant mind I was thankful for the fact that Bella was no longer there to witness my mental and physical faculties fail completely because of her semi-naked state. Somehow I don't think I could have explained my completely involuntary – and male – reaction to her in a _friendly_ way.

I had to admit that it was getting harder every single day to be around Bella and not see her as a beautiful woman who under any other circumstances I would have asked out on a date pretty much as soon as I met her. She was funny, she was kind, she was intelligent, she was interesting, talented and driven; she was a million other things apart from being completely and utterly beautiful. Now that I had seen her in that state of undress, I was having a very hard time shutting up the voice in my head that was now screaming the very real truth of the matter; I _really_ wanted to be able to date Bella. I wanted to be able to explore the insane chemistry that we had and the comfortable bond that we had formed. This was the first time since I'd broken up with Claire that I wanted to see whether I could actually have a future with this girl that I was horrendously attracted to. And she was my co-star who was not only still a teenager, but was still in some weird semi-relationship with someone she had been dating since she was old enough to date. Great.

The reminder of everything I had been telling myself in order to try and deny the fact that I wanted Bella got me moving again and I walked to the sofa so that I could wait for her to finish getting ready. It was kind of like an exquisite torture to be sitting in her living room knowing that she was only a few feet away not dressed in very much, if at all. I tried to keep my mind from really going down that road and so I decided to do something useful and try Carlisle and Esme again; I got through to my future sister-in-law.

"Edward, hi," she greeted. "Listen, I'm glad you called. We're going to be a little late."

I had to chuckle at the coincidence even though the image still in my head was not one to laugh about at all. I shook my head clear. I was talking to _Esme_. I was _not_ thinking about Bella in her bedroom picking out clothes to wear after discarding the towel. I was _not_ thinking about that at all because I'm _not_ a 17-year old who can't control either his hormones or his thoughts. I was a 23-year old male and I had seen plenty of women in just their towels without having any problems at all.

I needed to get my head together. "Yeah, we're kind of running late too," I tell her. "We had some work stuff to finish up. What's holding you guys up?"

I heard Esme groan. "I don't even want to think about it again until I have a glass of wine inside me at least," she answered.

This made me laugh and kind of forget about Bella for a second. She sounded a little frustrated and irritated, which was unusual coming from Esme who was usually so calm and able to take everything in her stride; it must have had something to do with the wedding. "Shall I call the restaurant and let them know?"

"I've already done it," she told me. "I pushed the reservation back to 7:30. Do you think you'll be there by then?"

I looked over briefly to the still-closed door of Bella's bedroom, which was a HUGE mistake because the effect was like having suddenly developed X-ray vision, only I knew that the visions in my head weren't actually real at all. "Sure," I say in a voice that's a little strangled. I clear my throat. "We'll see you at 7:30."

There was a slight hesitation before Esme spoke again. "Edward?" she asked, her voice sounding a little off itself. I prayed to whoever was up there that she hadn't noticed my tone of voice, or that if she had she wasn't going to ask me about it. I was not in the right frame of mind at this particular moment to make up a very believable lie. "Does Bella have any idea of why we're meeting tonight?"

Thank god! "Kind of, yeah," I tell her honestly, relieved to be talking about something that may keep the thoroughly inappropriate images of my _19_-year old co-star out of my head. Should I tell her the truth about the extent of Bella's knowledge? I decided that it couldn't hurt now that she was close to telling Bella herself. "She recognised you when she first met you and then she came across a photograph of you at Kristen's funeral." I decided to leave out the many times Bella had asked me about Esme because Bella didn't seem particularly keen on having her know about that. "She knows you're somehow connected to Kristen, but she has no idea just how connected. And she has absolutely no idea of your part in the film."

I heard Esme 'hmmm' on the other end after I finished explaining to her where everything stood in regard to her secret and her identity. "Do you mind not telling her about my involvement with the project?" she asked after a few moments. "I really want that to be as discreet as possible."

"Not at all," I assured her. "To be honest Esme, I don't think Bella will even ask you questions about whether or not you're involved in the film. I think she'll be plenty surprised by the news you have to give her as it is."

"I guess it is pretty surprising news and makes for a very small world."

"Indeed," I agreed. I still found it very strange that Carlisle's fiancé would be involved in the project that I was doing. I found it stranger still that she was actually part of the story. I heard the door of Bella's room opening just as I was saying goodbye to Esme and when I turned around, Bella was standing there fully clothed. Thank god!

"You look nice," I admitted because the relief that she was in clothes was overwhelming my usual control of what I said to her. She smiled at me and there was a faint tint of pink on her cheeks before she looked down that made me glad I'd given her the compliment

She played it off though, shrugging and then changing the subject. I wondered for a brief second whether I'd made her uncomfortable, but then thought that friends complimented each other all the time. There was nothing weird about me saying she looked nice in the clothes that she was wearing now. There would have been something wrong with me telling her she looked nice when she opened the door, but I hadn't. Bella and I were still very much in the land of friendship – where we should stay; where we _would_ stay.

* * *

A/N: Oh Edward! Being confronted with a half-naked Bella when you really weren't expecting it...must be hard for you (no pun intended). So...the dinner wasn't as full of questions and revelations as we all expected it to be (me included). I will say that the chapter started out one way in my head and ended up a completely different way when I began typing it. Still, I think that this way may be better for later developments that I cannot yet disclose. I hope it didn't disappoint too much though because I know a few of you were really looking forward to the conversation between Esme and Bella.

Who saw the Jasper thing coming? Who is Jasper Whitlock really? Is there even such a person? I feel like a Lost episode right now...giving three more questions for every answer I reveal. Oh well...

Thank you to everyone following and reading this story. An extra thank you for all those people who take time out to review...it is greatly appreciated.


	22. Chapter 22 All in a Moment

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

A/N: There is a slight change in format compared to other chapters in this one, but it's obvious why.

**Chapter 22: EPOV**

If Bella had been silent where Esme expected questions, she had more than made up for it on the way back from the restaurant. It was like we were playing 20 questions except I was the only one being asked any. I didn't really mind too much; after all, I figured she'd been way too stunned at the restaurant to really settle into an inquisition. Well that and she didn't know Esme very well and had a ludicrous notion that she needed to impress her or something. It was utterly silly of Bella to think like that because Esme didn't need people to be different around her to be impressed; she was an incredibly good judge of character and I had a feeling she already liked Bella.

Dinner itself had been quite a fun evening. It kind of amazed me just how easily Bella fit in with my family and friends, but then again I had an amazing set of people I loved who would have made anyone feel welcome and comfortable. It had genuinely surprised me that Carlisle and Esme would have thought to invite Bella to their wedding and I didn't really understand the reasoning. Not that I wouldn't have invited her to go myself; Carlisle had been quite right in saying that I would have asked her as my plus 1. It wouldn't have been a _date_ of course because co-stars did not date unless they wanted a damn scandal on their hands. It would have been two _friends_ enjoying a night out away from work amongst other friends and acquaintances. It amazed me how many times I'd thought of the word 'friend' in relation to Bella within the past couple of days. It was starting to lose all meaning I'd used it so much.

I'd noticed Carlisle looking at Bella and I curiously at different points throughout the evening, but whenever I caught him, he just shrugged and carried on with whatever he'd been doing. I could guess at what he was thinking and I didn't want to get into it with him. The more I seemed to think about Bella and my obvious attraction to her, the worse said attraction seemed to get. I didn't _want_ to keep having what were highly inappropriate thoughts about my friend, but I didn't know how to stop them. I had never really faced this sort of problem before. I had _always_ been able to go after a girl that I'd been attracted to; I'd never been in this state of complete inaction. Maybe that was why I couldn't shake the whole attraction thing – because I couldn't do anything about it – couldn't even really talk about it.

Bella had talked herself into silence and she was instead staring out of the window and saying nothing. I wondered what she was thinking about. Knowing her, she was probably rewinding the entire night and beating herself up for not asking Esme more questions. Bella worried too much about what people would think of her sometimes, though she claimed not to. She had the notion that she gave the worst first impression ever, but I had seen her meet all pretty much everyone that was close to me (with two exceptions) and no one had disliked her yet. Rosalie had been the closest of not liking her, but it wasn't because Bella had done anything to offend her when they first met; it was just because Rose wasn't exactly great with new people herself. Whatever it was that she was thinking, she had spaced out so much that she was no longer aware of her surroundings as we got out of the cab and into the apartment building. I actually had to prompt her to open her own door, which I found rather amusing.

Bella shook her head clear of whatever thoughts had been occupying her mind and started to fish around for her keys. "I didn't even realise we were here," she admitted. Well that much had been quite obvious. Must have been some pretty deep thinking.

She walked in and left the door open so I took it as a silent invitation to follow her inside. Really, I should have said goodnight and gone back to my own apartment straight away. We hadn't really got anything left to say to each other tonight. She must have run out of questions that she could ask me and I really needed to just spend some time sorting my own jumble of thoughts out. However, my feet seemed to be carrying me inside whilst I said something about a conversation we didn't actually have.

"I was just lost in thought actually," Bella told me as we entered the kitchen area and she took a seat at the breakfast bar.

Exactly as I'd thought she was. "More questions?" I wondered out loud, though I really didn't think that was even a possibility.

She grinned and shook her head. "No, just random musings of a very deep thinking and wise individual."

I chuckled at her answer and went to the fridge to get something to drink because I needed a reason to stay a little bit longer; I wasn't really ready to leave, though I had absolutely no idea why. I opened it and took out a bottle of beer for myself, realising that it had been left over from last night. I was just about to grab one for Bella, but then realised that she'd had quite enough to drink at the restaurant and was most likely not looking for another hang over to go with this morning's. Instead, I grabbed an energy drink, knowing that she'd been tired pretty much all day, even with the mid-afternoon nap. The smile that I received from her as she took the drink let me know that I'd made the right decision as to her choice of beverage.

We were quite for a while, but I felt compelled to talk to her, though I don't really know why. I had nothing of much importance to say that couldn't wait until tomorrow and we'd sat in silence for longer than this before, but tonight, I seemed to want to fill the silence between us.

"So," I started. "Did you come up with anything that will change the world with these random musings?"

Bella shrugged, brushing her hair out of her face before giving her answer. "I was just thinking about how glad I am that we're friends; real friends, I mean. Close." Her voice was soft, but I heard every single word as if it had been shouted at me from quite close range.

To say I was surprised would have been an understatement; to say I was flattered would have been a complete joke. I was gobsmacked and completely overwhelmed by the sentiment that echoed my own. I had just been thinking yesterday that I wanted mine and Bella's friendship to go beyond the movie and this weirdly concentrated time that we were together. Now, Bella was telling me that in her opinion, we had that kind of friendship already; it had developed; it had grown. I was happy. I was glad that I wasn't the only one who had formed this weirdly strong reliance and attachment on the relationship that we shared.

I noticed Bella's blush and smiled at it, thinking how frequently I'd been seeing it of late and wondering why that was. "A nice thought," I told her. "However, not entirely original."

Bella looked at me curiously for a moment and then rolled her eyes. "How so?" she asked, probably just to humour me.

"I had exactly the same thought yesterday," I admitted, my face growing serious. I knew she'd know at precisely which point yesterday I'd had that thought; after all, we'd had a pretty thought-provoking chat. However, I was a little curious as to why she'd started thinking about it today, when it was completely removed from what we'd been occupied doing all night. I had thought that she would more likely have been thinking of possibly meeting Kristen's relatives at the wedding and them recognising the dead socialite in her. The thought had crossed my own mind before.

Bella looked down for a moment, probably to gather her thoughts. "I don't know," she admitted finally. "I was just thinking about how much of your life you've shared with me; how much you've included me when you didn't really have to." I opened my mouth to tell her that it wasn't a case of _having_ to or not; I always _wanted_ to. However Bella just carried on, meeting my eyes so that I wouldn't interrupt. "I just...I've been in movies before and had friends on movie sets that I thought were really good friends, but then found out that it's just because of the situation we're in you know...not knowing anyone else where we're shooting and all that. I don't know how, but I don't feel like it's going to be like that with us."

Neither did I. Truth be told, I had never felt like that was going to be the case with us, even back when I'd only just met her. Bella had fascinated me from the beginning and usually if I hadn't annoyed the hell out of someone within the first thirty minutes of them meeting me, we became pretty good friends. Well, that was what happened with Rose anyway. I had been worried until yesterday that Bella didn't really see our friendship lasting beyond the time it took to shoot and promote the film, but you don't share something you're _that_ deeply ashamed of with someone you don't intend to see again after a few months. However, I was glad that her thoughts on the matter were now verbalised; it was always nice to have the confirmation of your theories.

I spoke again when it was clear that she had finished explaining just what had been on her mind to me. "You don't have to thank me for including you in things you know," I told her. "To be perfectly honest, it's mostly selfish anyway. I enjoy spending time with you Bella."

I wanted to reassure her that I didn't have dinner with her or go around to her place to watch films because I felt some kind of obligation to do so. Yes, I was aware that she was quite alone up here and she'd just had a huge shake up in her life, but that wasn't the reason I spent hours upon hours of my free time with her willingly. It wasn't even really about the amount of work that we needed to do together; that was just a nice and legitimate excuse. I just...I liked being around this girl and it was a wonder that she didn't seem to realise this; everyone else had certainly noticed. She didn't look like she'd come to that conclusion though, if the look of surprise on her face was anything to go by. I really didn't understand how this relatively insightful girl could be so blind when it came to herself and the effect she had on other people – or maybe not other people; just me.

"Well now that I'm going to your brother's wedding, I'm guessing we'll have to spend time together," she joked. I grinned at her, allowing her to lighten the mood somewhat because the tension around us was becoming a little hard to handle. I felt like there was something happening here, in this moment; something that I couldn't explain and couldn't stop even if I wanted to.

Neither of us said anything for a while, each of us lost in thoughts about what the hell this conversation meant in the grand scheme of things, or whether it meant anything at all. I felt like it _had_ to, though I didn't know what it _could_ possibly mean. I didn't know what else to say and yet I knew I still couldn't leave, so I took the longest time drinking the rest of the beer bottle in an attempt to have a reason to stay for a little while longer, until I could figure out what the hell was going on tonight and what I needed to do. There was only a quarter of the bottle left when I'd started and soon it was gone and there was absolutely no reason for me to still be in Bella's apartment. I had to leave and yet I still didn't know what the hell had happened tonight or why it was happening.

I started walking towards the door, knowing somehow that Bella would follow me and see me out. It had been such a strange night and so fucking confusing. Maybe it was because I was tired; after all, I'd had less sleep than Bella and hadn't had the luxury of catching up during the afternoon. Maybe the strangeness of this entire conversation was just in my head because I was in desperate need of some sleep. I don't know, but whatever it was would surely come to an end when I stepped foot outside this apartment, which was why I didn't understand why I wanted to stay instead of rushing to leave.

I turned to look at Bella once I'd crossed the threshold and even though I wasn't aware of even thinking them, the words definitely came out of my mouth. "You know Carlisle was right," I started. I was looking directly at Bella and feeling some surge of emotion that I couldn't name and yet felt so oddly familiar that I was carried away with it. "I would have asked you to come to the wedding with me."

The silence that followed that admission was absolute; so much so that had I really been thinking, I would have been worried that neither Bella nor I was breathing. However, I wasn't really thinking; I was just looking at the girl in front of me and for the first time since I'd met her, I didn't see a 19-year old girl staring back – I just saw Bella. Suddenly I got what this entire night had been leading up to; what the entire time I'd known her had been leading up to – this very moment. I thought I had seen Bella before, but really I hadn't, not clearly. I had seen her behind other things: her age, our job, her reputation, my idea of her; her character. I had used everything I could to hide the person that now stood in front of me because if I thought that Bella was dangerous to my peace of mind before, this person that stood in front of me now was fucking lethal.

I don't know what the hell would have happened if a drunk guy hadn't been thrown out of his apartment by someone who was presumably his significant other. Once the silence was punctured, everything changed and once again Bella stood before me as she had always appeared to me before tonight and I could breathe a sigh of relief. I was only marginally fucked.

I backed away and said goodnight before anything else weird could happen. I had a lot of thinking to do and there was still so much that I didn't understand, though now I was wondering whether that was partly because I just didn't _want_ to understand. Maybe. I heard Bella's response just as I turned the corner to ascend the flight of stairs to my own apartment.

*

**BPOV**

There are moments in your life that you want to capture on film so that you can relive them over and over again and remember the way you felt in that instant. Today one of those moments presented itself to me when I dumped my ice cold drink all over Mike Newton's sorry ass. I hadn't minded Mike at all; he was a little crude at times and he talked far too much for any normal human being – mostly about himself and sex. However, he seemed like a pretty harmless guy and he could be funny at times. What I didn't know that inside the body of that 21-year old male was a 70-year old female with nothing better to do than knit and gossip about other people's lives. Looking back, it may not have been the wisest decision to react in such an aggressive manner, but really it was the only way I could stop myself from breaking his nose, which would have been much more aggressive. I don't understand what could possibly have been going on in that boy's head that would make him think it was okay for him to perform a very lewd gesture in front of me whilst he was talking about seeing Edward and I outside of the motel yesterday. I had known since my talk with Sue that it had been Mike and Tyler who had spread the news that Edward and I were at it like rabbits – which was news to both the parties apparently involved – but I had thought it was just an off-hand comment that other people took the wrong way. That was the primary reason I hadn't felt the need to tell Edward who it was that had seen us. I had been wrong. It had been Mike, at the very least, who had seen a perfectly innocent exchange between two friends and had run to tell everyone his very loose interpretation of the events. I guess I'd know better than to give him the benefit of the doubt next time.

I had been hearing the whispering all day of course, but tried my best to ignore it and just get on with my job as normal. Today was Friday; I had an entire weekend away from this madness after we finished up this afternoon. I tried not to let the fact that everyone was watching Edward and I talk when we weren't in scenes together bother me even though it made me feel like I had a damn spotlight following me whenever I got within ten feet of the guy. However, people have limits and mine had been the vision of Mike's tongue and the implications of his actions. Really there was no way on earth anyone else would have reacted any differently and he should have been grateful that I had caught Alice's warning look before I caused him to need a plastic surgeon. Needless to say, I got out of the lunch room pretty quickly after my drink managed to find its way onto Mike's head.

"Bella!" It was Alice's voice that called out from behind me and although I wasn't adverse to her company, I didn't slow down. She could run to catch up with me if she really wanted to talk; I needed to get the hell away from that asshole before I got really violent. In fact what I really needed was to get away from the set, but that wasn't exactly an option. I now regretted telling Edward that it would be better for us to eat here today; it would have been better for my mood and sanity had we gotten as far away as possible regardless of the fucking rumours that would result.

"Jesus woman, you could at least slow down," Alice panted when she finally caught up with me. "Longer legs plus power walking does not make it easy for me to catch up with you."

I slowed my pace marginally to appease her, but not much. I was agitated and I wanted something to do that would calm me the hell down. I would have liked to have talked to Edward and exchanged some not so kind words about certain members of the cast, but Edward wasn't here and that was probably for the best because I would only manage to rile us both up. I knew it couldn't be a case of me and Edward against everyone else in the cast and crew, but it sure as hell felt like it today. Maybe we had isolated ourselves far too much in the effort of building a better relationship for the characters we were playing, but with the way everyone was behaving I wasn't sorry for that. I didn't need people in my life that didn't know better than to insinuate and spread lies; that was what the damn tabloid press was for.

I stopped after we got a couple of blocks away from the lot and took a few deep breaths. "Argh!" I nearly screamed in sheer frustration. The power walk may have gotten me out of the place and away from the temptation of violence, but I was still on edge.

Alice didn't say anything for a while, letting me seethe in relative silence until it looked like I may finally be able to have a conversation. "Look," she started. "Don't let Mike get to you. He's a fucking asshole and no one in their right mind listens to a word he says anyway."

I knew Alice didn't deserve it and she was trying to make me feel better right now, but I wasn't exactly in the best of moods and I just lashed out. "It's not just Mike though is it?" I ranted. "You think I'm cheating, Sue thinks I'm cheating. Is there anyone around here that doesn't think I'm an easy slut?"

Alice reddened and looked wholly ashamed and I have to say, I felt about as small as Mike's damn penis in that moment. She'd come after me to make me feel better and I was giving her shit for things that I'd already given her shit for. I was being a bitch to the wrong person entirely. I took a deep breath to calm myself down. "Sorry Alice," I said. "I didn't mean that at all. I'm just so damn annoyed with everyone and I'm taking it out on you."

Alice shook her head at my explanation. "I guess I deserved some of that anyway," she reasoned.

"No, you didn't," I assured her. "You've already apologised to me for your earlier assumptions and I already forgave you. It's completely unfair of me to bring it up again whenever I feel like it; especially when you're only trying to help me sort my damn head out."

She nodded and offered me a small smile, which I returned and for a few minutes we were silent. I kind of felt a little guilty that I had wanted Edward to be there initially for me to talk to when Alice was being so nice and had to wonder whether we were far too closed off in our friendship to really give other people a chance. I wondered how Edward was handling the situation; better than I was, I guess since he hadn't poured anything over our colleagues. I hoped that he was finding a way to tune out the gossip and rumour because I would absolutely hate it if things changed between us because of what other people perceived; what just wasn't there. Well...not really anyway.

There were certainly...moments, I guess I could call them, when Edward and I swayed into territory that I couldn't define and was very uncomfortable even thinking about. Last night, after the ride back from dinner, was a prime example of this.

_I had been thinking about the ever increasing parts of his life that Edward had let me in on and I was wondering how to return the gesture without him meeting my parents and such like because _that_ would be too weird and too traumatic for everyone involved. I didn't even notice that we'd exited the cab and now we were standing in front of my apartment with Edward looking at me to open the door. _

"_Shit sorry," I said, shaking my head to clear my thoughts away in order to concentrate on looking for my keys. "I didn't even realise we were here."_

"_Obviously the effect of our scintillating conversation," he joked, following me in when I left the door open. There didn't need to be a verbal invitation for him to come in for a little while; Edward was always welcome in my apartment and it would have felt a little weird for him to just go straight back to his own. If I really thought about it, I think Edward actually spent more time at my place than he did his own, but obviously that was purely because of work. Well, work and the distractions that came from us being together because of work. _

"_I was just lost in thought actually," I confessed without really thinking about what was coming out of my mouth. I regretted it as soon as I heard the words out there. _

_He looked at me curiously. "More questions?"_

_I shook my head and answered in the negative. "Just random musings of a very deep thinking and wise individual."_

_Edward laughed and made his way to the fridge in my kitchen, pulling out a beer for himself and an energy drink that I hadn't told him I needed. I smiled as he handed it to me, struck at the realisation that this anticipation of what I wanted had happened several times before, and not just in the past couple of weeks that we'd been getting to be pretty good friends. It had happened long before we even developed any kind of friendship; it happened from the very beginning of our acquaintance, which was probably exactly the reason we had worked so well together in the scene. Interesting._

"_Did you come up with anything that will change the world during these random musings?" he asked after settling himself on the other side of me, across the breakfast bar._

_I shrugged. "Not really," I admitted. "I was just thinking how glad I am that we're friends; real friends I mean. Close." I shut my mouth immediately and felt my cheeks warm with embarrassment at my very revealing speech. It must have been the alcohol. I was underage for goodness sake; I shouldn't have been drinking at all. _

_Edward's face showed shock when he registered my words and I wanted to just laugh it off and pretend that I was kidding, but then he smiled at me; a real, genuinely happy smile and there was no way I could take it back. That smile meant that he was just as happy that we'd gotten to know each other too; he was glad to have me in his life. I couldn't help but smile back at him._

"_A nice thought," Edward said after a few silent moments where we just grinned at each other like idiots. "However, not entirely original."_

_I rolled my eyes. Of course he'd have to make some kind of joke about it; he was a guy after all right? Men didn't talk about their feelings because their manhood would be at stake and the world would go to shit. Oh the cliché! "How so?" I asked, deciding to play along._

"_I had exactly the same thought yesterday," he admitted and suddenly I felt bad for tarring him with the same brush as all other men. I knew what he meant by yesterday; he was talking about when we were sitting together in silence after we'd just unloaded some pretty heavy emotional stuff on each other. Admittedly, although I had been amazed that I'd told him any of the things I had and been in wonder about how he'd taken everything, my thoughts yesterday were more focused on the things that I had learned about him and the fresh perspective I'd gained about my own situation with my Mom. It was funny how Edward helped me out in ways that he didn't even really know about; I guess that's what friends did._

"_What made you start pondering how I've drastically improved your life anyway?" Edward asked. I knew he was joking when he talked about drastically improving my life, but I couldn't help thinking that he had improved it in some ways; he'd certainly made the time I'd spent here so far that much more bearable and he'd prevented me from going crazy a couple of times too._

_I considered what I was going to say for a second before I opened my mouth; I didn't think I could explain it properly, but I wanted him to understand what I was trying to say. "I don't know. I was just thinking about how much of your life you've shared with me, how much you've included me when you didn't really have to." He opened his mouth to say something there, but I shook my head to indicate that I didn't want him to interrupt the flow of words that I had found. "I just...I've been in movies before and had friends on movie sets that I thought were really good friends, but then found out that it's just because of the situation we're in you know...not knowing anyone else where we're shooting and all that. I don't know how, but I don't feel like it's going to be like that with us."_

_I had been steadily blushing the entire time I'd been explaining myself to him and at some point, I had found the breakfast bar counter to be extremely interesting. I don't know what had compelled me to start this topic of conversation, but now that I had gone down this path, I was kind of glad it was out there; glad, but still completely embarrassed. It wasn't often that other people were privy into my thoughts – mostly because I didn't know how to articulate them in a comprehensible manner – but I had always had the sense that Edward just understood. I felt like even if I was talking complete gibberish, he'd still get what I was trying to say and paradoxically that made it easier to tell him what I was thinking anyway. I guess it was nice not having the pressure to say everything correctly just for what I was saying to be intelligible. _

"_You don't have to thank me for including you in things you know," Edward said after my speech had percolated into the space between and around us. "To be perfectly honest, it's mostly selfish anyway. I enjoy spending time with you Bella."_

_I looked up, surprised at his own admission and noticed that although he was obviously speaking to me – there was no one else in the room after all and he'd said my name – Edward wasn't looking at me. Instead, he was staring down at the mostly empty bottle that he was moving in small circles around the top of the breakfast bar, as if he wasn't quite certain how his admission would be received. I wasn't surprised because I thought he just spent time with me out of some perceived obligation, but I was surprised because I didn't think he would say what he did. I didn't tell Edward that I was glad we were friends so that he could tell me the same thing; I told him because I wanted him to know that. I didn't want him to guess at it, or to infer it from the two of us spending time together, I wanted him to really _know_ it with certainty._

_I wanted to lighten the mood a little bit, aware of the tension that could so easily surround us these days. "Well now that I'm going to your brother's wedding I'm guessing we'll have to spend time together."_

_Edward looked up and grinned, but said nothing in response. I didn't know what to say for a while after that because there was nothing else really that could be said. I felt like there was something around us that I couldn't explain, couldn't even really comprehend and although I didn't know what it was, I sensed that tonight was a huge marker for it. I was once again lost in thought, trying to make sense of the storm of thoughts in my head that wouldn't become any clearer no matter how much I willed them to. Edward too, seemed in no hurry to resume the conversation we were having, or even to start a different one. Instead he just continued to drink from the bottle that must have been nearly finished by now until he drained it of the last drops of alcohol it contained._

_He stood up to leave and I walked right along behind him as he made his way to the door. I didn't necessarily want him to go yet, but there was no reason for him to stay and there was no reason for me to want him to. We were done talking for the night and I would see him in a few hours anyway, for work. It was unreasonable really, not wanting him to leave, but I guess I'd gotten used to falling asleep in the early hours of the morning to the sound of his chatter. I was filled with the irrational urge to ask him to stay and read some of the scenes for tomorrow even though we'd already gone through every single one before. I didn't understand what the hell was going on in my head at all, but somehow the idea of Edward leaving just did not sit well with me. _

_Edward crossed the threshold, but turned back towards me before I could close the door. "You know Carlisle was right, I would have asked you to come to the wedding with me," he said, giving me a very familiar look that made me just stop._

_I had seen this look from Edward before, several times in fact and it always had the same effect of stopping the world and then restarting it again at a completely different pace. The only difference was that the look he was giving me was never actually directed at _me_ before and it had never really been _Edward_ that had been giving it. The expression in his eyes and in his face was only familiar because I had seen and experienced 'Rob' do the same to 'Kristen' several times throughout our rehearsal period. I was absolutely thrown and yet kept in place. I had no intelligent thoughts running through my mind and I was not aware of what the hell my body was doing at all. It was as if I was watching this scene as a third party and I could _observe_ and _predict_ what was the likely outcome, but I could do nothing to influence it at all. This was the closest I had ever come to having an out of body experience. _

_As it turned out, the outcome of the moment was actually to have someone come out of the apartment directly opposite mine and slam the door behind him, shouting at whoever was left behind on the way out. Edward and I both looked behind him at the commotion and whatever had been going on before had been interrupted. When Edward looked back around to me, the smile he gave me was nothing but friendly and I had definitely come back into my own body. I was confused as hell about what had just happened, but I was now finally distinguishing individual thoughts in my head again. _

"_Good night Bella," Edward said as he backed away, giving me a smirk and a little wave before he turned around._

"_Good night Edward."_

_That was the first night I dreamt of Edward Cullen. _

Well no actually that's a complete and utter lie. I wish I could say that it was the first night my dreams had included Edward. Or say that it was the first night I'd dreamt about him in a decidedly non-friendly manner. Unfortunately neither of those two things would be true. It was, however, the first night I dreamt about Edward – in any sort of manner – where I had remembered exactly what the dream was about when I opened my eyes the next morning to face the harsh light of day. It was the realisation of the fact that it was Edward in my dream that made me recognise his appearance in several of my previous dreams. I had been dreaming about Edward Cullen since I met him; it was just never clear before.

Yes, Edward and I, we definitely had a moment last night and this morning both of us had chosen to completely ignore it. I don't know which of us made the decision, or whether it was even conscious, but we didn't speak about it at all and so far that had worked out for the best because there was no weirdness between us. I had worried that there would be when I woke up this morning; worried that the friendship I had just told him I really valued would be altered by the inexplicable something that passed between us as he was leaving. I chalked it up to the two of us spending too much time together as the characters we were playing; sometimes we didn't know where the job ended and where we started just being us again. I guess it was a good thing that I was spending more time with just Edward instead of Edward as Robert; it should get easier to differentiate the two after a while. Or maybe it was because I was spending too much time with him that this was happening, but I didn't like this thought or the implications of it, so I decided to completely discount it as a possibility. Things worked like that right?

So, we were fine; everything was normal; nothing was strange or awkward. Until we got into work and everything went to shit. Hence the reason I was standing with Alice who looked like she was kind of stealing herself up to say something she knew I wouldn't like. Then again, she may have been about to say something that I would _normally_ have been fine with, but would completely blow up over because of the mood I was in now; who knows?

Finally, she stops walking and stands in front of me so that I'd stop walking too. The determination shining from her eyes told me that it was going to be the former guess; I wouldn't like the words coming out of her mouth no matter what kind of mood I was in.

She took a deep breath in before she started. "Look Bella, I'm going to say some things that you won't really like and you'll probably bite my head off for, but I think you really need to hear them anyway because it's better coming from me than someone else who doesn't really know you. I just want to warn you because I'm not saying these things to be accusatory or to rile you up on purpose; I'm just saying them as your friend."

I had a very bad feeling I knew what was coming, but I said nothing and instead just nodded my head, indicating that she could go on and I would try to listen as calmly as I possibly could. Alice didn't relax one bit at my conceding to hear her out; if anything she tensed further, as if readying herself for a fight.

"You and Edward are scary close," she says quickly, not looking at me as the words fly out of her mouth. "In fact, you and Edward are so close that you actually alienate everyone else in the cast when you two are together." I opened my mouth to protest that this had to be the case because of the roles we were playing and the nature of the story, but Alice didn't let me even take a breath in preparation to speak before she was carrying on with her speech. "And it's not like it's happened gradually either. You two have been pretty much as thick as thieves since you got to New York and people are wondering whether there's some history there that you haven't shared. It's really strange for two complete strangers to just suddenly be best friends and start spending every waking moment together."

"We don't spend every waking moment together," I argued when she finally paused for a long enough period to allow me to speak in defence of myself and the friendship I had formed with Edward. "We spend time together working on the movie." Alright, so that might have been stretching the truth a little.

Alice obviously didn't believe that at all. "I'm not accusing you of anything here Bella, but I really doubt you spend all your free time with Edward just working on the movie. I get that you two are dedicated and it really shows, but you don't spend hours and hours every night working on the movie."

_Technically_ that wasn't true because all the time we spent together outside of work had helped to make our interaction when we were in our respective roles more believable. So really, if it benefitted our jobs, didn't that mean we were working on the movie? I thought so. It didn't matter if we spent maybe only a quarter of our time together actually talking about the movie because unless we could recreate the electric bond that the two people we were representing were fabled to have. However, I chose not to try and sell this to Alice because it would be admitting to spending maybe a tad more time with Edward than she possibly knew about. It wasn't really a _secret_ how much time we spent together, per se, but because no one else in the cast was invited no one else really knew about it. Instead, I chose to go with the whole 'attack is the best form of defence' line.

"You know, if it was you I was spending time with, or if it was Angela, no one would care," I pointed out. It was true; no one would give a shit if I spent 24 hours a day with one of the females in the cast, but because Edward had a penis, our friendship _must_ have been something more than what it was. "No one would think we were having some sort of illicit affair."

Alice shrugged. "Maybe they'd fantasise about it though," she joked. We both chuckled dryly at the truth of that statement and she had achieved her goal of lightening the mood so that I wouldn't feel like I was on trial – again.

"Seriously though Alice," I started after we'd sobered. "I don't get why just because Edward's a guy people can't accept that we're just good friends and they ask nothing but questions about it. I find it a little absurd that the society still thinks that men and women can't just be friends even in the 21st century."

Alice snorted at my argument. "The reason that people are wondering about you and Edward isn't because he's male Bella." I gave her a look of complete disbelief here because that was an all out lie. "Okay, not_ just_ because he's male," she amended.

"Then what is it?" I wondered, still not really believing her. It was only by chance that it was Edward. If I spent as much time with say, Ben, as I did with Edward, people would have started rumours about us too and I don't think either of us was particularly attracted to the other. Not that Ben was horrendous looking or anything like that; he just wasn't my type and judging by the way he looked at Angela, I really doubted I was his type.

The look that Alice gave me was exasperated; as if she was explaining something not only to a child, but to a very slow child; a slow child that didn't speak English. I would have felt offended, but I'd maxed out my ability to feel offended over the past couple of days and I just wanted her to get on with whatever it was that she had to tell me. "It's because even a blind man can see that you two are extremely attracted to each other and not just the characters that the other is playing either."

I think my eyes may have actually done the whole cartoon thing of popping out about half a foot in front of me and then popping back in. Certainly, I was surprised that the bottom of my jaw was still attached to the top part. I blinked several times and opened and closed my mouth several times, as if all these things would help me formulate a response to Alice's words that I could barely even begin to comprehend. I wasn't sure whether I'd heard her properly and yet I knew that she couldn't have said anything else. I was extremely confused and she wasn't helping matters by going off and talking at break-neck speed again about something else. Whether this something else was related to her shocking claims or whether it was about something completely different, I didn't know because I didn't hear a single word she was saying.

The only words that really made sense were the ones that were flashing in front of my eyes as if they were a on a sign in Vegas. _'Edward was attracted to me?'_

*

**EPOV**

The end of rehearsals on Friday could not have come any sooner; the entire day had turned out to be a nightmare, though not for the reasons I had expected when I woke up. I have to admit that I was a little anxious about whether or not things would be weird between Bella and I because of whatever it was that actually transpired last night, but when I got in the car with her it seemed as if nothing had changed at all; we were fine. We didn't talk about it, but maybe it was just the tiredness of yesterday that had gotten me so turned around and mixed up about the situation. If Bella had nothing to say on the matter then surely nothing weird actually happened.

No, the nightmare part was completely due to work because not only had Sue spent all of rehearsals scrutinising my acting (which I didn't begrudge because she was the director and it was her job), but also how I was with Bella whenever we weren't in character. It was getting to be a little ridiculous and entirely annoying; I felt like I was standing trial for a crime with the way she was watching me. I wanted to say something to her, but I didn't know what and I didn't know how – not without getting my ass fired anyway. So whilst Bella and I weren't acting weird because of last night, I now felt like we were acting weird because we were being studied. It wasn't just Sue watching us either; it was pretty much the whole cast. They couldn't have been more obvious either and I told Bella that even if she didn't go to high school she was now getting the high school experience alright – pettiness and gossip were all part of the fun of your teenage years.

_I could have counted how many times I'd had lunch on this set on one hand and that wasn't just because I'd been in transit during lunch times for most of the first week of rehearsals. The fact of the matter was that I liked spending lunch time off set, not thinking about the movie and just talking to Bella. We'd had our most enlightening and entertaining conversations when we were having lunch. It was different being with Bella when other people were around and when we were alone, though I wasn't quite sure why that was. It wasn't like we behaved any differently towards each other when other people were there; it just _felt_ different. I guess it was because Bella and I spent so much time together away from everyone else that we were just used to it being that way. We had jokes that no one else know about or understood and there were obviously secrets that we'd told each other than no one else would be privy too. Basically, it was just a lot easier to be alone with Bella than to be with Bella and other people._

_Still, today we were having lunch on set with everyone else in an effort to solidly prove that no, we weren't sneaking off during these breaks to have hot, secret sex in seedy rent-by-the-hour motel rooms. It had been Bella's suggestion to spend more time with the rest of the cast after Sue's accusations yesterday and even though I thought it was completely absurd to change our perfectly innocent routine to placate someone's paranoia, I agreed because really I didn't want to make things harder for myself or Bella at work. So, to prove that we didn't treat each other any differently to the rest of our cast mates, Bella and I had lunch with everyone else; we even sat apart from each other._

_I was sitting with Ben, Jessica and Tyler whilst Bella was on the adjacent table with Mike, Alice and Angela. We were talking about nothing of consequence, just some chatter about the latest baseball results and the possibility of going to a Yankees game whilst we were here when Tyler brought up what he'd been doing yesterday lunch time and where he'd been._

"_Hey Edward, were you outside the motel a few blocks away from here? The one with the weird garden thing at the front?" It was Tyler who asked the question and suddenly who it was that saw Bella and I yesterday was crystal clear. I wondered whether Bella knew that it had been Tyler that had informed Sue of what he'd supposedly 'witnessed'. _

_I struggled to keep a completely indifferent face as I looked up from my burger and fries to answer his question. "Yeah," I tell him calmly. "I was there around two thirty."_

_He nodded and took another bite of whatever sandwich he had been eating. The atmosphere of the entire table had changed, as if everyone there was waiting for something to happen. It confirmed the theory that had been on my mind all morning; everyone was talking about yesterday. I returned back to my food, but couldn't relax because I knew that this was not the end of the conversation I did not want to have with anyone, let alone anyone here._

"_Was Bella with you by any chance?" _

_I clenched my jaw and fist at the same time. I _really_ did not want to be talking about this and every part of my body actually gave this away, but apparently Tyler wasn't really that receptive to non-verbal communication. I fought to keep my head together and keep my tone somewhat casual, like I didn't want to give him a piece of my mind for gossiping like an old lady. "Yeah, I picked her up."_

_Tyler sniggered and muttered an "I'll bet" into his sandwich. I'm not going to lie, I was about to stand up, reach over the table and punch him in the face. The guy was in his mid 20's and he was making whispered accusations and spreading shit about both Bella and I around the set; obviously someone had never gotten out of the teenage mentality. The thing that stopped me from responding to his immaturity in an equally immature manner was actually Ben, who had noticed me getting up and pulled me back quite sharply. I glared at him for a fraction of a second but then realised that he'd done me a favour; reacting in such a strong and rather over-the-top manner would only fuel the flames of gossip. Thou doth protest too much right? So instead I just went back to eating my lunch and ignoring Tyler even when he tried to engage me in conversation that had nothing to do with Bella; I wanted to send the message that we were _not_ friends loud and clear. I did not appreciate idiots with nothing better to do landing me and a friend of mine in shit just because they couldn't keep their minds out of their fucking pants. _

Apparently I wasn't the only one having problems getting along with my other cast mates. Fifteen minutes after I'd been on the edge of introducing my fist to Tyler's face, Mike Newton got soaked by the contents of Bella's cup; cola, I think. I don't know exactly what was said, and Bella refused to tell me – but it was pretty much the highlight of the day. She stalked out of the canteen after that and all eyes turned in my direction, as if waiting to see what I'd do. I put my head down and just kept on eating. I wanted to go after Bella and ask what had happened, but I saw Alice go after her and really, she could have done without anymore gossip about our relationship.

Surprisingly one of the only members of the cast that wasn't whispering behind our backs and blatantly staring at us when we even so much as conversed with each other was Alice. She actually seemed to be one of the only people who were still holding on to their sanity and I had overheard her telling Jessica to stop gossiping about things she knew nothing about. I guessed it was out of loyalty to Bella more than anything and it certainly wasn't because she had developed any nicer feelings towards me, which she made pretty clear by the answering glare she gave me when I tried to smile in thanks. Note to self, do not try and initiate friendly contact with Alice Brandon again. By the afternoon I wanted to scream at everyone that they really needed to get a damn life and stop being so interested in mine, but Bella convinced me that this was not the way to go. She seemed to be handling everything much better than I was and was determined to take the high road in an attempt to show people that there was nothing to be defensive about. Well, that was a new one for her.

Then again Bella wasn't the one who was sort of carrying a not-so-secret torch for her co-star was she? I guess I felt the need to stop people talking about it because I felt a little guilty that what they were talking about could potentially be sort of half true. Obviously the whole thing about the motel was preposterous, but they were completely right in the fact that I did spend an awful amount of time with Bella because I liked her – and not in an entirely platonic way. I realised after the very strange events of last night that this girl had completely gotten me twisted around in knots without my even realising it. I was trapped in a situation of my own making that I couldn't really see a way out of. My problem was that I was teetering on the edge of being so taken with Bella that I would forget how I was _supposed_ to act with her and yet I couldn't distance myself from our friendship or the girl at all. I liked being around her and I wanted our friendship to continue to develop further still and yet I was now realising that the more it developed, the more I would want it to go beyond friendship. And neither of us was ready for that.

I knew that Bella's life was far too complicated right now to be able to take on any more problems and there was still the fact that she still had a boyfriend. Yes the two of them were 'on a break', but as 'Friends' proved, being on a break does not give anyone in the party the right to see other people. Being 'on a break' meant that you needed space to gather yourself together and make up your mind on whether or not you wanted to stay together; it did not give you the right to date other people and see if there were better options – that's what a break up was for. Besides I didn't want to be _that guy_; the guy who takes advantage of his friend when she's confused and in a vulnerable state just because he can't control his damn thoughts or emotions. I didn't want to make Bella's life any harder than it was. She was only 19 and she was still trying desperately to find out who she was and where she belonged in the world; I could sympathise with that.

What I really wanted to do was talk to someone about it, but I didn't want to talk to anyone that knew Bella. Carlisle would have given me some advice without the teasing that Rosalie would have tortured me with (well, not as much anyway), but my older brother was incredibly busy and I didn't want to trouble him with this quite trivial problem. Esme was the same. Rosalie was out straight away; I wouldn't be able to stand the inevitable mocking. Jasper would have been a great person to talk to – if he hadn't disappeared from the face of the earth. That left...well that kind of left no one. I kind of only wanted advice from people that I would take it from and that ruled out pretty much everyone else I knew. Sometimes I regretted not being more trusting and open with people. Maybe I just needed some time by myself to just think about everything. I was kind of convinced that it was much harder to ignore the fact that I wanted Bella because I had to spend literally _hours_ every single day pretending I was in love with her. It was confusing as fuck and it wasn't getting any easier for me to separate my own thoughts and emotions from those of Roberts; if anything it was getting even harder.

It was perhaps a good thing that Rosalie was going back to LA this weekend. She was getting rather sick of the dead ends that she was hitting regarding the Jasper front and she told me that she needed a change of scenery. I didn't believe her one bit; Rose was going to see Tia and I had already told her that she was taking this entire thing too far. I wanted to get to the bottom of the Jasper mystery as much as anyone, but I didn't think that we were necessarily the right people to do it. I had suggested hiring a PI if she really wanted to know and was too impatient to let Jasper come to us, but she shot down that idea because she didn't trust anyone else with the possible information they may uncover. I think it may be Rosalie that's been watching too many conspiracy films, not me. I didn't really know what she was thinking was going to be uncovered about Jasper's past, but whatever it was she imagined it to be pretty big and also kind of dangerous; which made her wanting to go to LA by herself even more idiotic. Still, Rosalie was extremely stubborn and extremely persistent so nothing I could have said made a single difference to her plans at all; she had left before I even got back from work.

As for my own plans this weekend, I had been thinking about going to visit my Mom ever since my conversation with Bella on Wednesday. Now that I was back on the east coast it was much easier to visit her for a day and I wanted to take advantage of that whilst I could because before I knew it I'd be back in LA, several thousand miles away. I'd spoken to my Mom on the phone a few times since leaving her a few weeks ago and she sounded how she usually was; quite at peace and relaxed. There were times when my Mom didn't exactly know where she was and why she was there, but there was always a certain sense of calmness about her when she wasn't having a break. Maybe it was the medication that she was taking, but I didn't think that was all of it because she'd always been like that; ever since I could remember. Carlisle had gone to see her last week and told me that she was doing much better than when we had last seen her, which was a nice confirmation. However, the best confirmation of this fact was to go and see it for myself and so I called the facility and informed them that I would be by to visit tomorrow.

Tonight though, I had absolutely no plans but to sit in my apartment, watch some TV and go to sleep at an indecently early time. It was now 8 and I'd been home from work for about thirty minutes. Bella had plans with Alice tonight and I had a feeling that she was thanking her friend for taking her side even though she didn't entirely believe our innocence herself – or mine at least. It was kind of pathetic of me not to have anyone else in the cast to go out with except for Bella and I would have been a little worried about that had they not all pissed me off today. As it was, they had pissed me off and I really wasn't all too bothered about the fact that we weren't particularly close; I didn't need to be close of a bunch of people that hadn't outgrown the high school mentality of spreading gossip. Honestly sometimes I think that the world of Hollywood is just like high school – only more vicious – and that depressed me. It was in those moments that I wondered whether I really should be doing this. Maybe I should have just gone to college and studied something like music and become a teacher. But then I would have been in a _real_ high school my entire adult life anyway, so it may not have been that much better.

I was just sitting down to eat the lasagne that I'd made for myself when there was a knock on my door, disturbing the night of peace and solitude that I had planned. I wasn't expecting anyone so I actually walked over to open it instead of just shouting the person in. I almost fell over in shock.

"Jasper?!" I couldn't believe my eyes and wondered for a brief second whether I'd fallen asleep on the couch. Because having Jasper turn up on my doorstep after three days of wondering what the hell was going on with him and of trying to get in touch with him, but receiving no reply was just unreal.

He didn't say anything and just swept past me and into the apartment; apparently he'd lost his manners in the three days he'd been god knows where. I closed the door and watched as he walked from the lounge to the kitchen and finally into my bedroom, as if he was looking for something. Join the freaking club my friend. He disappeared from sight once he was in the bedroom and I assumed he was also now checking my bathroom, though I didn't know what the hell for.

"Where's Rosalie?" he asked once he'd checked out the bathroom and come back. There was something in his expression that told me this was not just a social call, but I wasn't giving him any answers until I asked a few questions myself.

I walked calmly back into the living room and sat back down in front of my still steaming hot meal. "The question is where the hell have you been?"

Jasper followed me and sat in front of me, moving the lasagne away and taking its place. I looked up at him in annoyance, but Jasper was not being his usual self. His eyes were tense and his entire face was etched with a worry that I didn't understand. "Edward I'm being really serious here, where the hell is Rosalie?"

I'll admit, I was kind of alarmed at this very different Jasper, but I was also kind of a little pissed at this very lying Jasper and the latter emotion obviously won out in the end. "What the hell does it have to do with you?" I asked, my voice betraying every ounce of irritation that had built up for him over the past few days. "She's been trying to get hold of you since Wednesday morning and you weren't particularly concerned about her whereabouts when you were ignoring her calls were you?"

Jasper was aggravated and his eyes bore something in them that I had never seen before. "Jesus Christ Edward, this isn't a fucking joke. Where the hell is she?" He was standing over me now and there was a panic in his eyes that made him look a little crazed and very dangerous.

I stood up myself so that I could face him and show him that this little intimidation tactic was not going to work. He had absolutely no fucking right to stand in front of me and demand answers when he's been the one that's had me and Rose imaging all sorts of shit for two days. Well, I've actually been like this for a week, but it's only been the last two days that I really knew I had something to be paranoid about in regards to his behaviour.

"No!" I shouted back. "You know what Jasper, this is a fucking joke. It's a joke that you think you can come here and start demanding to know shit about your friends when you haven't given them the same right to know anything about you. And it's a fucking joke that you've lied to both me and Rosalie for the past week or so – maybe longer, who the hell knows?" Obviously I had amassed some anger towards Jasper since my discovery of his deception.

I may have surprised him with the level of my resentment of his actions because I saw the indignation slowly fall away from him, but the look of panic was still very much present and I have to say that it was starting to catch. Why on earth would he want so desperately to know where Rosalie was? Had she found out something about him that he didn't want her to? Were we correct in assuming that Jasper wasn't a criminal? Because right now, there was barely a trace of that gentle, easy going southerner than we knew to be our friend. In his place was a man, practically manic and obviously trying very hard not to lose it in front of me. This Jasper looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders; and I should know, that had been me several times in my life. And yet Jasper still wouldn't give me a straight answer as to what was going on and this fact was getting me more and more pissed off as he continued to stand there demanding answers from me.

"What the hell is going on with you Jasper?" I almost implored. My voice was still strong, but I was no longer yelling at him.

Jasper rubbed a hand over his face and when he looked back at me I noticed that there was a certain amount of guilt in his features that hadn't been there earlier. He still looked annoyed, but he also looked like he was quite sorry about something. "Look Edward I know how this is going to sound, but this is really not the time for me to be explaining everything. I just want to know where Rose is." There was an apology in his tone, but I knew he wasn't going to give anything up.

In my mind's eye I could see Rosalie's reaction had she been in my place during this conversation and it more than mildly resembled a volcanic eruption that would kill everything within its wake. I had a much more reasonable response, though there may or may not have been steam rising from my head. "When the fuck is the time for explaining everything then? Shall Rose and I wait for the phone call Jazz?"

Jasper's eyes were ablaze once more and I could sense a touch of violence in the air because we were both rather riled up and had nothing but each other to take it out on. I hadn't seen Jasper angry often, but right now I could tell that this man in front of me was far more dangerous than I had ever thought possible and once again it struck me just how much I didn't actually know him. There were a few long moments where we both just stood there, eyeing each other and unsure as to where this confrontation was going to go. We were both angry. I was really mad at him for lying to us and disappearing without a word; he was mad at me for not immediately telling him where Rosalie had gone. There was something else too; I didn't, for a second, think that _all_ of Jasper's anger was directed solely towards me, though I had no idea who else it could have been directed at because he hadn't given me any damn information.

Finally it was Jasper who was the first to relax his posture and walk away, stopping to sit at the chair opposite of mine on the other side of the room. I think it was the guilt that caused him to actually back down rather than the fear that I would beat him should we start fighting. Jasper and I were quite evenly matched physically and I would guess that we'd do some pretty serious damage on each other before a clear winner was actually decided. Personally, I wasn't angry enough to end up in hospital for the weekend and it didn't look like he was either. I followed him in the act of sitting and just waited, wondering what was going to happen next; whether he would finally clue me in as to what the heck was going on.

Jasper's head dropped into his hands and when he looked back up at me there was an intensely troubled man behind the familiar face of my friend. "Edward, I know you're pissed and you have every right to be, but you just have to trust me on this, please," he almost begged. "I have to know where Rosalie is."

No matter how betrayed I felt that Jasper had been lying to Rose and I, I couldn't deny him an answer when he looked like the world had just ended. I had never seen someone with the same look in their eyes that Jasper held in that very moment and I felt myself start to panic; something very bad was happening and I still had no idea what it was. "She's on her way back to LA."

The movement was instantaneous and before I'd even gotten the sentence out of my mouth Jasper was already headed for the door. It was lucky that I had extremely fast reflexes and very lucky that I had always been a naturally gifted runner because I caught up with my friend after he'd descended two flights of stairs already. I bypassed him and blocked his way trusting that he wouldn't push me down the stairs to get past. When I got a better look at him, I worried that I had been wrong to think he wouldn't risk injuring me quite severely in order to get to where he needed to go. That alone sent me into a tailspin.

"Jasper what the fuck is going on?" I demanded, my throat going dry as my mind tried not to think about the implications of the next words out of my mouth. "Is Rosalie in trouble?"

The haunted, tortured look in his eyes was enough of an answer.

* * *

A/N: Thank you to everyone for continuing to read this little story. An extra thank you for everyone who reviewed.

Holy hell...there's a lot to digest in this chapter huh? What the hell is going on with Jasper and how is Rosalie involved? And the 'moment' between Edward and Bella? When will the two of them just stop with the denial? *Sigh*...oh well, at least there's some sort of progression with the two of them right?

Okay...I am informing you all that from now on the updates will come bi-weekly due to the fact that I start my new job tomorrow and just won't have as much time to write as I did. So I'll be updating again in 2 weeks (give or take a couple of days)...thanks for your patience and sorry...I know how frustrating it is.


	23. Chapter 23 A Question of Trust

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 23: BPOV**

I didn't expect my Saturday night to be spent like this. In fact, I hadn't expected _any_ of my nights to be spent the way I was spending this one. My plans for the weekend had been pretty simple; I was going to go home on Friday night and _not_ think about Edward in any other way apart from his being my friend and co-star; I was going to spend Saturday trying to straighten out some of the chaos in my head and invite Esme for brunch the following morning and on Sunday I was going to ask Esme all the questions I should have done on Thursday night. I should have known, as soon as Alice mentioned something about going out with some of the cast on Friday night that I was _not_ going to be spending the weekend as I had planned to. Instead of spending Friday in the quiet comfort of my own home, I had spent it at the back booth of the very noisy club getting asked incredibly personal questions by several of my female cast mates as they got steadily drunk. I would have _loved_ to have been as wasted as some of them had been, but due to the fact that I was underage and in a public place, there was no way in hell that I was going walk out of the club looking like I needed to check myself into rehab. Still, just because I wasn't drunk didn't mean I wasn't drinking a _little_; I needed to in order to stand the barrage of questions that was coming from all directions. Apparently when it was 'all girls together', talk got far more candid and it was nearly a rule that everyone had access to your life.

"_Come on," Jessica laughed, taking another sip of her fourth cocktail of the night. "You can't tell me that you spend all your time with _that_ and not want to be just a little more _'friendly'_ if you know what I mean." _

_Even if I didn't understand the implication of her words, the way she raised her eyebrows and licked the corner of her mouth when she spoke gave me plenty of visuals to figure it out. She had been trying to get me to confess to a secret, passionate affair with Edward sporadically for the entire night even though I had denied it several times. If I didn't know myself any better, I would have probably started to think that I _had_ been sleeping with Edward given Jessica's refusal to take my denials seriously. _

_This time, however, I didn't have to say anything. "Give it a rest Jess," Angela scolded, rolling her eyes. "She's already said it a million times and so has he. There's nothing going on between the two of them."_

"_Actions speak louder than words Ange," it was Jane that spoke this time. It seemed as if she and Jessica were in a tag-team. _

"_And she hasn't _done_ anything Jane," Alice defended, giving me an apologetic look. She had assured me that tonight would be good for me; it would show everyone that I didn't spend all my free time with Edward and that I was open to hanging out with _all_ my cast mates. Had I not been completely preoccupied by what Alice had said to me at lunch, I wouldn't have agreed because of that argument at all. The truth was that I spent all my free time with Edward because I wanted to and I _wasn't_ particularly open to hanging out with all my cast mates at all. For example, right now, I didn't want to be in the same city as Jessica and Jane, let alone the same room._

_I had never had a problem with either of these two girls before. I knew we weren't going to be the best of friends, but I wouldn't have objected to maybe going out for dinner or a few drinks with them whilst we were all in New York together. However, I was changing my mind about that rapidly. They had been fine at the beginning of the night, consoling me about Mike's behaviour (because of course everyone knew about it by the end of the day) and assuring me that they would have done the same thing were they in my shoes. As the alcohol flowed though, so did the truth and the truth was that both of these two women would have slept with Edward in a heartbeat and didn't understand why anyone wouldn't do the same thing, given the opportunity. At first I found it rather funny that they would take it for granted that I _had_ been given the opportunity; then I just found it irritating._

"_I don't know how many more ways I can say that Edward and I are just friends," I say, completely exasperated. _

_Jessica shrugged. "It's just a little hard to believe Bella, that's all."_

_My eyes narrowed at her. "And why is that Jessica?" I demanded. "When I've been saying the same thing as he has all night and neither of us has ever wavered with that statement."_

_Jessica met my eyes and didn't back down; she had a point to make and she seemed quite sure of herself. "We all know what it's like to confuse fact and fiction Bella," she told me, gesturing around the table to everyone present. "It's part of the business and we all learn to draw lines. The thing is, with you and Edward there are no lines. You two are the same whether you're in a scene or not. Doesn't that strike you as odd?"_

_I was looking at her with utmost shock on my face. What the hell did that mean? Of course there were lines drawn between Edward and I; a hell of a lot of them actually. And of course we were different with each other when we weren't pretending to be Rob and Kristen; after all, we didn't kiss every ten minutes did we? Jessica was being ridiculous and I was shaking my head without even bothering to reply because I didn't feel there was any need to refute those obviously false allegations. However, as I looked around the rest of the cast, I noticed that not a single one of them looked surprised at what Jessica had said. In fact, I could have sworn that Angela was nodding a little bit, as if to say that Jessica actually had a point. Was everyone insane? Edward and I acted like friends when we weren't in character; nothing but friends because we _weren't _anything but friends._

_Alice seemed to realise that I was on the verge of walking out of this place and not talking to anyone else throughout the course of the weekend because she changed the subject abruptly by shouting for more drinks. I still wanted to get out of here, but Alice was trying to make everyone get along; trying to give me more people to hang around with on set and in my spare time. I wasn't clueless as to her other motivation for wanting me to get to spend time with other people in the cast. Even though she had arranged for us all to go out before, she had never been as insistent on it as she had been that afternoon. I did like everyone else in the cast and it was nice to hang out together sometimes, but I didn't want to spend all my free time with the same people I spent all my working time with too. Alice wanted me to make friends with everyone else so that I wouldn't spend so much time with Edward; she was worried that I _would_ do something even if she no longer believed that I was doing something. A couple of days ago, I would have been pissed with this, but Alice seemed like the only person in the group right now that believed I wasn't either having sex with my co-star or busy falling in love with him. Talk about getting fact and fiction mixed up; just because two people are playing lovers onscreen did not mean that they were playing at it off-screen too. Well, at least not in this case. _

_It was another hour and a half before the topic of Edward and I came up again and by this time everyone on the table was drunk – except me. I had been sipping my drinks very slowly all night and alternating alcohol with soft drinks, just so I wouldn't get into the same state that Jessica, Angela, Jane, Alice and Rachel were now in. I was a little buzzed, just enough to kind of relax even though I didn't want to be here at all. Alice and Rachel were currently on the dance floor surrounded by a group of men who couldn't believe their luck at being in the same vicinity as two incredibly gorgeous women who were quite famous. Jess and Angela had excused themselves to go to the bathroom a couple of minutes ago and I was sitting in the booth with Jane, alone. I had been sitting by myself for the past ten minutes after leaving Alice and Rachel with the excuse of my feet beginning to hurt. They kind of were in my four inch stilettos, but I also kind of just wanted to be away from the heaving bodies that made up the crowded dance floor. Jane had come and collapsed next to me about two minutes ago, a fresh, red drink in her hand._

"_You know, no one would blame you if you did hook up with Edward," she said completely out of the blue._

_I looked up to find her studying me intently with her strange, almost lilac eyes. I didn't even bother to say anything, having said it all a hundred times before to no avail. It was like I was a broken record and even I was getting sick of the sound of my denials, no matter how true they were. There's only so many times you can say something before it loses all meaning and you just shouldn't bother saying anything at all. I was hoping that my not replying would clue her into the fact that I didn't want to talk about this; didn't want to talk to her at all at the very moment._

"_I mean the guy's a bona fide god among men," she continued, as if she didn't actually need me to participate in the conversation she seemed determined to have with me anyway. "He's outstandingly good-looking, funny, great musician, got an amazing voice and he has this..." she trailed off, a thoughtful look crossing her youthful features. The amazing thing about Jane was that even though she was nearly 6 years my senior, she looked ten years younger. There had been speculation that she'd had some work done, but nothing had ever been proven and she always denied it, stating that it was a mixture of good genes and a healthy lifestyle that allowed her to keep her youthful glow. If she had been under the knife, I hope she paid the surgeon well because he or she did an astoundingly good job. _

"_There's just something about him that's so...captivating, don't you think?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. _

_I shrugged, still not wanting to say anything to encourage this line of conversation. I knew that Jane was purposely throwing some leading questions my way in the hopes that I was either drunk enough, or stupid enough, to confess my secrets to her. Needless to say, I wasn't either. Against my better judgement however, I found it incredibly interesting to hear how other people perceived Edward. Of course I found him fascinating – I had spent enough time with him to know that he was so much more than what everyone could see on the surface. Yet, what did other people see about him? Did they see the good-looking, shy and slightly awkward guy that didn't know how talented he really was? Or did they see the confident man who knew liked to flirt and exchange sexual innuendos? Did they see anything at all besides the fact that the guy actually got better looking the more time you spent looking at him?_

"_He's going to be huge when this film comes out," Jane carried on, still completely undeterred by my silence. "He's absolutely perfect as Robert; all that brooding, mysterious air around him with a face and body like _that_...he'll have women throwing themselves at him." She gave me a pointed look here, as if expecting me to react badly to this piece of information. "Not that he doesn't already, of course."_

_Ouch. So, now it all comes out. Jane thought that I was throwing myself at Edward Cullen and that this was the basis of our relationship. I hadn't thought I could become any more offended or pissed off than I was, but I was wrong; horribly, horribly wrong. I was going to give her the reaction that she had been trying to get from me since the beginning of the night, it seemed. I didn't want to, but everyone had their limits and apparently mine was this woman who didn't even know the first thing about me, insinuating that I was desperate enough to throw myself at a guy who happened to be a very good friend of mine._

"_Just stop fucking talking!" I shouted, though it was still hard to hear over the noise of the club._

_Jane was taken aback and sat further away from me, her back straight and obviously bracing herself to hear the tongue-lashing that I was going to unleash upon her. Still, she couldn't hide the gleam of victory in her eyes. Bitch._

"_I can't believe I've spent the entire night here with you bitches," I seethed. "I can't believe that I've been sitting here defending how I choose to spend my time when I'm not at work when it's absolutely no one else's fucking business but mine." In my periphery, I could see everyone in our group starting to come back to the table, but I wasn't done and they all needed to hear this anyway, not just Jane. "You know what Jane? I think you're all just god damn jealous that I do spend so much time with Edward. I mean weren't you and Jessica just saying that you'd be with him at the click of his fingers? Are you just pissed that he wouldn't even think of clicking his fingers in your direction?"_

_Yes, it was low and no, I probably shouldn't have brought Jessica into it because as annoyed with her as I was, she wasn't so obviously vindictive and insulting as Jane had been. Still, in that moment, all I saw was red and I just didn't give a shit. I couldn't believe that supposed adults would behave like this, but I guess we were in Hollywood and people here behaved exactly like overgrown children who got what they wanted whenever they wanted it. _

"_I'm going," I announced, grabbing my purse and jacket. I walked out of the club without looking back, even when I heard Alice call my name. I didn't want to talk to anyone; I was too pissed off to be able to control anything that came out of my mouth and I knew I'd say something I regretted to Alice._

_I didn't calm down on the cab ride back to the apartment at all; if anything, I just got angrier. Not thinking about the people who may have been sleeping in the building, I slammed every single door in my apartment and then did it again, just because I couldn't exactly throw anything out of a window. The entire day's worth of frustration and anger was bubbling to the surface and I wanted to hurt someone; either that or break down in tears. I didn't do either; instead choosing to throw a lamp in my living room clear across the room, watching it smash to pieces as it collided with the wall. It felt good and my mind eased enough for me to realise that violence and property damage never did anyone any good in the long run. _

_It took me a while to get to sleep that night and I had to ask myself whether being friends with Edward was worth all the shit that I was going through because of it. Surely things would just be much simpler if we didn't spend so much time together; if we just hung out on the set like everyone else. Then I felt enormously guilty for even thinking such a thing; I was weak. I couldn't believe that I was letting how other people viewed me dictate how I acted; I wasn't that type of girl at all. I wanted to be friends with Edward and other people's skewed view of that friendship shouldn't prevent me from wanting it. Why was I letting this get to me so much? I was a little afraid that the rumours would cause a change in the easy freedom of our relationship, but I was contemplating on changing it just the same. I was fucking confused and still incredibly angry, though by the time I went to sleep, I didn't know who to be angrier at: myself or everyone else._

I didn't speak to Alice until sometime this afternoon after a morning spent ignoring the knocking on my door. There were only four people I wanted to see right now, three of whom were in another state all together and the fourth whom I didn't think it would be too healthy to see after last night anyway. Alice, unfortunately, was not on that very exclusive list and so I very rudely just laid in bed whilst she tried to get me to open the door for her. It wasn't until the guilt was almost making me choke that I decided to finally pick up when she called my cell. And it was the same guilt that had me sitting opposite her and Jasper, of all people, in her apartment. Yeah, like I said, I didn't expect my Saturday night to be spent like this.

For one, I thought Jasper had disappeared off the face of the planet, but I guess whatever else he'd lied about, he hadn't been deceiving Alice when he told her he would come and visit her this week. I wondered whether Edward knew that his MIA friend was sitting only a couple of floors away from him, making small talk with Alice and I. My face had been a complete picture, I'm sure, when I saw that Jasper was in Alice's apartment, but if either of them had noticed, they were too polite to question me about it. Well, Alice was too polite; I had no idea what was going on in Jasper's head. He seemed very comfortable around Alice, which disturbed me to no end; that he could be so at ease knowing he was lying to someone that was supposed to be important to him. It wasn't the greatest quality for your friend's boyfriend to display.

I decided to text Edward and include him on the strangeness that was my night.

'_So...I'm at a very weird dinner party thing and guess who I'm sitting with?'_

The reply came almost instantly.

'_Yeah, I know Jasper's back.'_

Well, I guess Alice wasn't the only one out of the loop anymore; I felt a little stung at the fact that Edward hadn't told me Jasper was here. Obviously he'd known that I was going to be having this dinner with Jasper and Alice and yet he didn't think it was a good idea to mention the fact that the friend he'd been looking for since Wednesday had re-surfaced. I had promised to keep the fact that Jasper had been here all week from Alice because Edward wanted time to find him and find out what the hell was going on, but now that he'd done all those things, he didn't think it was a good idea to tell me? I felt betrayed and I didn't like it one bit.

My phone vibrated again only two minutes after Edward's reply came through.

'_I'm sorry I didn't tell you. It's been fucking crazy since he showed up again. I'll fill you in on everything when I next see you. I promise. I'm sorry.'_

Well, I couldn't exactly be pissed at him now that he'd apologised. Again, I marvelled a little bit at how Edward seemed to know that I wouldn't like being kept in the dark about this without my having to tell him or him even observing my behaviour. It both amazed and disconcerted me how my mood had changed in an instant according to the words that Edward had sent me. I'm sure if I cared to examine that more deeply, I would find some deeper meaning in it that would make me question a lot of other things in my life. However, I was already dealing with a lot of other shit that was making me question my life, my friendships and myself so I didn't want to go looking for any more complications. Instead, I sent a quick message back to Edward and turned my attention back to the couple sitting opposite of me.

Alice was looking at me curiously as I put my cell back in my pocket; apparently she had snapped out of the little bubble her and Jasper had been occupying and was now wondering what I was doing. I said nothing and just smiled, turning towards Jasper to engage him in some sort of conversation.

"So, Jasper how're you enjoying New York?" I ask, trying to put aside any doubts I may have of him until Edward explained what was going on to me.

"Well so far, I haven't seen much apart from the airport and this apartment," he answered, squeezing Alice's hand and looking at her rather suggestively, leaving me no doubts as to what they'd been doing before I turned up.

'_LIE!'_ I wanted to cry out, but instead I asked "Is this your first time then?"

He nodded his head. "I've been meaning to come here for a while, you know, see what all the fuss was about, but until now I've never really had the proper incentive." He gave Alice another look that had her blushing, which wasn't something that was too often seen and I had to wonder why she invited me here when it was clear that they would both have rather been alone. Did she think I had nothing to do all weekend but wallow about the disaster that was my life? Well, technically I didn't, but I wouldn't have wallowed _all _weekend.

"You never thought of coming out with Edward?" I ask, not seeming to be able to get off the subject of his being in New York, though I didn't want to tell Alice that he had been here either. I guess I wanted to clue him in about me knowing about his lies. I wanted him to know that I could destroy his facade with very few words and he should be fucking wary; I guess I wanted him to know that I was protecting my friend.

I think Jasper got the hint that something was wrong because his eyebrow furrowed at me for a moment before he replied. "Ed's never come back here in the time I've known him, so this place couldn't be that exciting right?"

Alice laughed with Jasper, but I just smiled. "He seems to love it actually," I insisted. "In fact, I got the feeling that he'd rather be here than in LA, especially the last...I don't know, week or so?"

If he didn't know what I was trying to hint at before, then he sure did now. Jasper was very good at acting; if I didn't know better, I could have sworn that he was in the industry too. If I hadn't been paying attention, I would never have noticed the tension in his eyes when I finished what I was saying because everything else about him seemed completely untroubled by my seemingly harmless sentence. Before he could reply however, the oven timer went off in the kitchen and Alice was running towards it in a flash, leaving Jasper and I sitting there, looking at each other as if we were sizing up the other for battle. I didn't understand what was going on with him, but I didn't like people who played games with my friends and both Edward and Alice were now caught up in whatever Jasper had happening.

Jasper's expression changed from carefree and relaxed the moment Alice was out of the room. Instead, he was tense and there was a desperation in his eyes that took me aback. "Look Bella," he whispered hurriedly. "Whatever it is that you think you know, you don't."

I scoffed. "Funny, Alice and I seem to have that in common." I didn't bother to keep my voice down and Jasper actually looked back to the kitchen area to check whether Alice had heard that or not.

"Please Bella," he pleaded and there was no hint of deception on his face anymore. "Please don't tell Alice. I know you don't have a reason to believe me, but I'm not a bad guy and I care about her a lot."

"Well maybe you should stop lying to her," I argued, not moved by his words; it was very easy to say something, but Jasper had done nothing to convince me of his claims that he cared about Alice.

"I'm doing that for her own good," he insisted.

I almost laughed loudly at this. "Well maybe you can give her that excuse when she finds out about the fact that you've been here for an entire week, she may buy it." The panic in Jasper's eyes was very real and very sincere and I felt a twinge of something; he really was worried about what Alice would say if she found out. "Look, I'm not going to tell her because I promised Edward I wouldn't, but you need to stop lying to my friend and pretending it's for her own good. People don't like being lied to Jasper, no matter what the reason is for that lie."

He was just about to say something else when Alice came back in carrying the main meal of the night and we both plastered smiles on our faces, pretending that we hadn't just been having quite an intense conversation. The rest of our evening together passed with a few more moments of tension. I felt like Jasper was watching me far more closely throughout the entire time, as if making sure that I didn't accidentally let something slip to Alice. I think Alice noticed that there wasn't something quite right between myself and her boyfriend because she became much more animated and bright as the evening wore on, as if to compensate for the fact that Jasper and I didn't have much to say to each other. I could tell that she wanted us to get on and we obviously weren't making a good enough show of liking each other for her taste. After about two hours, I was finally able to make my excuses and leave, to the relief of the three of us, I'm sure.

Alice showed me to the door and I was about to turn around and finally leave when she put a hand on my arm to stop me. I turned around and found that she had pulled the door to her apartment close and she was looking at me a little hesitantly; she obviously wanted to say something. I stood there looking at her and not saying anything.

"Do you not like Jasper?" she asked finally, her face and voice distressed.

I wasn't surprised by the question at all; I had expected something like this to come from her mouth, though I didn't think we'd be having the conversation right now with its subject on the other side of the door. However, I didn't have a ready answer for her because I couldn't say exactly why I had been a little off with her boyfriend, whom I never had a problem with before.

I shook my head. "It's not that I don't like him Alice," I told her honestly. And it wasn't. I didn't mind Jasper at all until I found out that he was lying to my friend. "I've just had a really tough couple of days." Now I was kind of lying to Alice too. "I guess I'm just not good company for anyone right now."

Alice looked for a moment like she wanted to talk some more, but Jasper called her name from inside and I took that as an opportunity to escape. I told her that I'd see her on set on Monday and left before she could say anything else. I didn't head back to my apartment, bypassing it and choosing to go to the floor above to see Edward; I was impatient and wanted answers right now. I felt like Alice and I were turning a corner with this whole friendship thing and even though she didn't get me like Edward did, there was something to be said for having someone else back you up on set. I didn't like lying to Alice to cover up for Jasper when I knew that she would be absolutely devastated when she found out about it. I had heard her talking about him and the girl was head over heels for him; I didn't want her to get messed around. I knew I was being slightly hypocritical; after all, I'd told Alice a few half-truths myself, but I rationalised it by telling myself that they didn't affect her. Whether I told Alice that I spent a night alone when really I'd spent it having dinner with Edward wouldn't affect her life. This thing with Jasper, well, it very well might; especially if he was using her as a cover so that he could deceive other people about his motives for being in New York.

Surprisingly, it wasn't Edward who answered my knocking, but Rosalie, who looked just about as shocked as I was when she opened the door.

"Bella?" she asked. "What are you doing here? You know Edward's not here right?"

Well, no, obviously I didn't, otherwise I wouldn't have knocked on the door. However, I didn't know Rosalie well enough, or felt comfortable enough in her presence, to make a sarcastic comment. "Er...actually, no, I didn't know he wasn't here. He never mentioned going out."

She opened the door a little wider and stepped back, inviting me inside wordlessly. "He's gone to visit his Mom actually," she informed me as I came in. "He left this afternoon and won't be back until tomorrow afternoon. Did the two of you have plans or something that he bailed on?"

I shook my head, embarrassed that I just turned up at Edward's apartment without even establishing whether he was home or not. Really, he should have mentioned that he was away for the day, but then again, I shouldn't have assumed that he had nothing better to do with his time than sit around and wait for me to ask him questions about his friends. I was a little stupid to think that he'd be free anyway; it was a Saturday night right? And he was visiting his Mom for crying out loud; I couldn't exactly be pissed at him for doing that without telling me. After Wednesday's conversation, I'd been thinking a lot about my Mom and I guess it was the same for Edward, so it made sense that he would go and see her when he had nothing to do.

"I'll just...I'm sorry to interrupt Rose, I'll just leave." I started towards the door already, but Rosalie stopped me.

"Don't be stupid Bella," she laughed, walking to the couch. "I was only watching TV and you were obviously here for something. Is it anything I can help with?"

I started to shake my head to answer in the negative before pausing just a moment to really think about it. Rosalie could absolutely help me with the questions I had about Jasper resurfacing after his disappearing act a few days ago, but I didn't know whether she would share that information as willingly as Edward would. Rosalie and I were still somewhat on very uncertain ground because although she had apologised to me for her earlier hostility, I still didn't feel too at ease in her presence. It wasn't that she had been anything but nice to me since then, but there was still something I couldn't quite put my finger on. Maybe it was just my awkwardness around people I didn't really know. Maybe it was because she intimidated the hell out of me. Who knew?

"Er..." I hesitated, not moving from where I was near the doorway. "Well, it's just that I was having dinner with Alice and Jasper-"

"Oh shit!" Realisation lit Rosalie's features. "I guess that was a pretty big surprise right? I'm guessing Edward didn't tell you that Mr. Mystery was back from whatever rock he'd been hiding under the past couple of days?"

I shook my head again and Rosalie rolled her eyes, laughing all the while. "Bloody typical," she commented. "I swear that man is in his head far too much to actually display common sense." She looked at me with a strange expression on her face and raised a perfectly shaped dark blond eyebrow. "Are you planning to rush off somewhere? Regardless of what Edward will have you believe, I don't bite."

I didn't have anything to say that wouldn't sound rude and for some reason, I really didn't want to offend Rosalie; something told me that she wouldn't take kindly to that no matter how unintentional it was. So, because I didn't have any other choice, I moved over to where she was and sat down on the armchair to her right. I guess it was about time that I spent some time with Rosalie; I'd spent time with all of Edward's other close family and friends. Besides, I still wanted to know what they had found out about Jasper.

"So er, where exactly has Jasper been then?" I asked a little hesitantly, not sure whether she would answer my question.

Rosalie huffed out a breath, obviously exasperated. "I have no idea," she told me. "All I know is that he and Edward basically drag me out of the airport on Friday evening and that I have to stay in New York for the foreseeable future, which I'm not entirely too pleased about let me tell you."

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. "So, he hasn't told either of you what the hell he's been doing whilst he's been here? Or why he's been lying to Alice about being in LA?"

Rosalie shook her head. "Ed and I know about the same as you do. He was here doing something, seemed to disappear off the face of the planet for a couple of days and then he's back."

"And that's fine with you?" I was confused. Somehow Rosalie did not seem like the kind of person who just took that kind of shit at face value. It astounded me that neither her nor Edward had questioned their friend further considering the confusion he'd left behind and the amount of effort they were putting in to find out about his activities.

Rosalie's deep, dry laugh rang through the apartment. "Not a bloody chance," she admitted. "I went off at him like nobody's business. First the arsehole practically man handles me out of the airport and then deems that I need to stay here for 'a while' and all the while he's not giving me any answers. He was lucky I didn't beat his arse down."

I smiled at this thought because even though Jasper was over 6 feet tall and looked very capable of defending himself, I could see him being overwhelmed with the formidable force that was Rosalie. Like I said, she was an intimidating sort of person; and that was even when she wasn't angry.

"So?" I pressed.

She shrugged. "Absolutely nothing," she told me, defeat and confusion in her eyes. "He begged Edward and I to trust him; told us that everything he was doing right now would become clear in the near future, but we just had to trust him." She sighed again. "I don't know what to think to be honest with you Bella. Edward was...well, he was fucking pissed. I think he was more pissed than I've seen him in a long while and he didn't say much to Jasper before he left. I want to trust him because up until now he hasn't given us any reason not to and I want to believe that we do know him, but...I just don't know."

I nodded my head as she spoke, sympathising with her confusion about her friend who was so obviously hiding something big from the people closest to him, but asking them to trust him in return. I don't know what I would have done in her position; hell I kind of was in her position even though Jasper wasn't exactly my friend. He had asked me to keep his being in New York a secret from Alice; pleading with me to trust his affection and devotion for her when I didn't really know the first thing about him. In reality, I think Jasper was asking me to trust Edward; trust that if his friend was willing to put faith in him then I would too. It was completely unfair because of course I trusted Edward; completely and absolutely. If Edward wasn't going to pursue the Jasper matter further then neither was I and Alice would be none the wiser about her boyfriend having been here for an entire week before seeing her until he chose to divulge that information to her himself.

"Can you guess what he may have been doing Rosalie?" I asked after a few minutes of contemplative silence on both our parts where we pretended to watch the TV.

Rosalie looked at me steadily for a few moments before replying, as if she was weighing up whether or not I could be trusted with her theories. "I don't know," she admitted finally. "Some of the explanations I'm coming up with seem like they'd be more plausible on the big screen or in a John Grisham novel than real life."

I looked at her strangely. "You think he's involved in some sort of cloak and dagger conspiracy to do with the government?"

Rosalie laughed. "I know right? How ridiculous do I sound right now? But the scene at the airport was so fucking surreal that I thought for a second I'd dosed off and was dreaming. I seriously thought that someone was going to pull out a gun or something any second with the way Jasper was so desperate to get me out of there without answering a single question."

I considered Rosalie's response for a few seconds, wondering what could possibly fit in with the scenario that she'd described and yet didn't sound like a plot from a Hollywood political thriller. I couldn't think of one. Rosalie and I talked for a few minutes longer about the Jasper situation until I felt comfortable in my decision not to tell Alice about his deception. Although I didn't feel as at ease with Rosalie as I did with either Alice or Edward, she was certainly trying to make me feel welcome even though Edward wasn't there. I think she wanted to get to know me better; maybe so that she could better judge my relationship with her friend, I don't know. Whatever the reason, when she offered me a drink, I didn't refuse and soon we were talking about things that didn't relate to Jasper or Alice.

We must both have been on our third or fourth glass of wine when she asked me about my week and I don't know if it was because of the booze (probably because I did get a little loose in the tongue department when I was drinking) or the fact that she'd shared something with me that I hadn't expected her to, but suddenly I was telling Rose all about my horrific experience on Friday night. I didn't hold back at all and I was off-loading some pretty harsh thoughts and feelings towards some of my cast mates.

"Oh god, girls can be such bitches," Rosalie commented after I'd told her about Jane. "I went to an all girl's school and it was fucking brutal. Everyone had to know everyone else's business and they had to give their opinion on everything they knew about you."

"I know right?!" I agreed enthusiastically, glad that someone understood me. I shuddered at the thought of going to high school in a school full of girls and for the first time in a while I was glad that I didn't have a normal teenage experience like that. "Why the hell does everything I do have to be questioned? Why can't I just be friends with a guy without my wanting to jump him?"

Rosalie looked up from pouring herself another glass from the nearly empty second bottle, her face confused. "Wait, you don't want to jump Edward?"

I almost choked on my mouthful of alcohol. "Wasn't that what we were just talking about?"

She shook her head full of perfectly placed blond hair. "No, we were talking about you not actually having jumped him yet and all the bitches working on the movie who it seems would kill to be you." I snickered at that observation. Yeah, it certainly seemed like both Jane and Jessica would like to be a little bit closer to Edward than they currently were; than even _I_ currently was at the moment.

"Well no, I don't want to jump Edward," I stated, wondering why my words didn't quite sound right. Maybe I was slurring; I had drunk quite a lot tonight.

"I did," Rosalie said with a shrug of her shoulders.

I spat out the wine that had been in my mouth. Not exactly the most civilised thing to do, but I was shocked out of all accepted social behaviours by her comment. "You mean...I thought...I knew you guys weren't just friends." If I had been sober, I would have been extremely embarrassed and worried about the fact that I had just revealed to Rosalie that I had been questioning her relationship with Edward just like everyone had been questioning mine; I was a hypocrite. However, I was drunk and I didn't really know what I was saying, so there was no embarrassment and I just wanted to know more now that she had revealed something to me.

She looked at me for a moment, eyebrows furrowed and I wondered for a second whether I'd pissed her off, but she shook her head and her face cleared completely. "No, we've always been just friends, but when I first saw him..." she trailed off and gave me a very steady and very probing look. "Come on, you can't tell me that when you first saw him you weren't rendered a little bit speechless. All men may have been created equal, but Edward Cullen certainly was certainly created more equal than others no?"

I shook my head. "Honestly, I didn't really get it," I replied truthfully, words stumbling out of my mouth before I really understood what I was saying. It was a good job that I hadn't been drunk last night because I really did get chatty and very candid when alcohol was running rampant in my head and killing all the brain cells that usually told me to shut the fuck up.

Rosalie looked sceptical, so I elaborated. "He wasn't really my type," I confessed. "The world didn't suddenly stop when I saw him, but Edward does have the kind of face that you can't forget. I think he gets better looking every time you see him rather than his being absolutely perfect from the get-go, though I guess his face is the same so..."

I trailed off because I had kind of backed myself into a corner with this argument and I forgot what point I was trying to make in the first place. I had told the truth; I didn't want to have sex with Edward the moment I set eyes on him. But then again, I had also realised that he really did have a face I didn't forget. I think it was probably the eyes that did it; or maybe it was the jaw. Edward seemed to have a set of features that you really did find more appealing as you studied them because although they didn't seem like they would look good all on one person, they absolutely suited Edward. His face wasn't perfect and in certain angles I was sure it could look downright weird, but it was interesting and arresting and yeah, it probably could stop traffic.

"How about now then?" Rosalie asked after a few seconds of silence. "Would you jump him now?"

I was so surprised by the question that it took me a moment to find the answer and in that moment, I felt the blood rush to my cheeks even as I willed myself not to get worked up about this question. "No," I said in a voice much too strong to be considered a natural response. I was just being defensive because of what people had been saying and the accusations I'd had to deny constantly yesterday; surely she would interpret my reply in that way right?

Rosalie, I noticed, was staring at me intently as all this ran through my head and I was suddenly a little panicky about her being able to read my mind. That ridiculous thought I did blame on the alcohol; I guess it wasn't only pot that made you a little bit paranoid. "How about you?" I asked, aware that I was trying to deflect her attention away from me, but not really caring about the reason why I was doing it; she was just making me a little uncomfortable and if I was uneasy when I was drunk, I would be absolutely crawling in my skin if I was sober.

Rosalie didn't let her gaze waver at all as she shook her head. "I got over it about three seconds after meeting him," she told me. "He's like a brother I never had and thinking about him in a non-platonic way kind of turns my stomach a little bit."

She pulled a face to underline what she meant and I had to laugh even though I didn't really feel like laughing at all. "Me too," I agreed and I downed the rest of my glass of wine before I could meet Rosalie's penetrating stare once more. I was lying. I knew I was lying and I was absolutely positive that if caught Rosalie's blue gaze, she would also know I was lying. Because as much as Edward and I were only friends and as much as I was confused about a lot of things in my life, one of the things I was fairly certain about was the fact that thinking about Edward in a non-platonic fashion did not turn my stomach at all. It did other things to my stomach, but there was no disgust and certainly no feeling like I would be engaging in an act of incest if I were to have a non-platonic relationship with Edward. I needed another fucking glass of wine.

Rosalie changed the subject pretty soon after that and I hoped to god it wasn't because she could read me like a book. I was an actress; I made my living by hiding all my own emotions and displaying other ones and yet I didn't know whether I was really that successful in hiding the panic that was raging through my system. We talked a little about Edward's whereabouts for the weekend. Rosalie seemed surprised when I happened to mention that I knew exactly where Edward's mother was and why she was there; I guess Edward didn't tell many people about it for obvious reasons and I felt extremely privileged to be included in the small circle of people who did know. He really did trust me.

All in all, Saturday night was an extremely strange night. I never would have thought in a million years that I would be having dinner with Alice and Jasper pretending everything was okay and that I didn't know he was lying to her on a daily basis. I never would have thought that I would then spend the better part of the night drinking beer and wine with Rosalie as we discussed everything under the sun, from Jasper's weird behaviour to work, to clothes to cars and men. I never would have thought that a night with Rosalie would get me to admit something to myself that I really had been trying not to even think about.

I wasn't only attracted to Edward Cullen; I wanted to do something about it.

I was so fucked.

*

**EPOV**

I should have flown. I should have taken the hour and thirty minute flight to DC or Baltimore and driven from there to go and see my Mom. If I'd done that I would now be sitting in a very comfortable seat several thousand feet in the air getting offered a drink. Instead I was sitting in the car looking at the very long line of other cars in front of me, beside me and behind me. Yup, that was right...I was stuck in traffic. I had been stuck in traffic for the best part of the three hours that I had been driving. Apparently there had been a major accident on the I-95 just before it crossed into Maryland and it had caused this massive backlog that I couldn't see a way out of. This drive should have taken me just over four hours and instead it looked like it was going to take me six because even without this traffic, I was still nearly two hours away. I don't know what the hell came over me, thinking that driving would have been better than flying. Well, okay, no...that was a complete lie. I know exactly what had come over me; Jasper. That bastard had nearly given me a heart attack on Friday night and I was half expecting to run into the airport and find that Rosalie had completely disappeared with no one having seen her. Instead, we get there to find her sitting rather comfortably on those god-awful plastic seats reading a book and completely oblivious to her surroundings. She had been more than a little pissed off at being told that she needed to come back and that she couldn't go to LA that night...or for the next few weeks; with absolutely no concrete reason as to why.

"_Are you two fucking insane?" Rosalie asked when Jasper and I turned up in front of her, gasping for breath and looking like we'd run a marathon when we'd actually only been running from the parking lot. "What the hell are you doing here?" She looked towards Jasper and I could feel the fury without even having to look at her. "Where the fuck have you been?"_

_Jasper was already gathering the various personal items that Rosalie had scattered around her. He was still breathing heavily, but he looked like he didn't want to stand still even for a second. "We have to leave Rose," he said rather calmly, taking her elbow to lead her away from where she had been sitting. He was trying not to make a scene, keeping his voice down and his head lowered, but Rose didn't mind making a scene at all; especially when she was pissed off._

"We_ don't have to do anything Jasper," she seethed, yanking her elbow from his grasp rather violently. "_I_ have a flight to catch and _you_ have some explaining to do."_

_Jasper breathed out in exasperation, looking around again before settling his gaze back on Rose. "I don't have time for this Rosalie; we don't have time for this. Just for once, don't ask any questions and come with Ed and I."_

"_Fuck you!" Rose raged, causing quite a few heads to turn in our direction. I tried to smile at the old couple who were looking scandalised with her outburst, but their disapproving stares wouldn't budge. I noticed that a little boy was staring at Rosalie wide-eyed and his mother looked like she wanted nothing more than to come over and yell at us for using such language in front of children. We were going to get reported; I could just see it._

"_Er, guys-" I attempted, but neither of them were listening._

"_Who the hell do you think you are?" Rose carried on. "Come to think of it, do you even know? Because we sure as hell don't. Is it Jasper Whitlock or Ben-"_

"_Rose!" I shouted before she could get any further. "Look, this is not the time or the place to do this right now. We have to leave."_

_Rosalie looked at me like I'd grown two heads. "You can't be serious Ed?" she asked. "You're taking his side here when he's done nothing but lie to us since he set foot in this city...maybe even since we've known him?"_

_Jasper chose that moment to speak up, hands full of Rosalie's belongings. "Rosalie look, I get that you're pissed and you have every right to be, but I'm asking you to trust me. We have to leave now and if you don't come willingly make no mistake that I will put you over my shoulder and carry you out."_

_Rosalie looked from me, to Jasper and then back to me, as if asking me whether he would do it and whether I would let him. My raised eyebrow was all the answer she needed and she huffed off in the direction of the exit even though she had no idea where we'd parked the car. I saw Jasper look around once more before following her and I took a deep breath before doing the same; I hoped to god I was doing the right thing by trusting him._

Rosalie had been enraged when Jasper didn't tell her a damn thing about why she had to leave the airport and why she couldn't go back to LA for now. I seriously feared for both our lives as we drove back into the city because Rose didn't like being told what to do almost as much as she didn't like being kept in the dark. She was convinced that Jasper and I had some sort of secret that we were keeping from her, which Jasper denied; very well in fact. Too tell. He'd told her that I knew pretty much about the same as she did and that was the way it would stay; he lied like a pro and that scared the shit out of me because if I didn't know any better I would have believed him too.

I was between a rock and a hard place. Jasper had given me the bare details about what the hell was actually going on with him, just enough so that I didn't stand in his way when he went to get Rose and so that I would help him keep her in New York. In return for answering some of my more burning questions, Jasper had sworn me to secrecy; I couldn't tell anyone what he'd told me; I had to keep acting as if I was as clueless as everyone else. It should have been easy, after all, he hadn't actually told me exactly what was going on. Whilst no longer being completely in the dark about my friend, I was still stumbling around in a rather dim room, trying to find a light switch so I could see exactly where I was going. Yet Jasper wasn't going to give me anything else; he asked me to trust him and although I didn't know who the guy was staring me in the face anymore, I knew my friend and he definitely wasn't a bad guy.

I felt like it though. I felt like the biggest shit in the world because the only reason that Jasper had told me was because he knew Rosalie trusted me without question. If I seriously asked her to stay in New York and not go digging deeper into the mystery that Jasper had placed in our laps, she wouldn't. He needed her to stop asking questions; he needed the both of us to just stop trying to uncover the secrets that he swore to me he had a reason to keep.

"_Edward, I know how you're feeling right now," Jasper said as we sped toward the airport, hoping to catch Rosalie in time. _

"_I really doubt it Jasper," I snapped. "I can't keep this from her. If she ever finds out that I knew, the basis of our friendship would be completely shattered." Rosalie wouldn't forgive me for lying to her and I didn't know whether I was even capable of doing it; she knew me better than anyone except my family._

"_That's why I didn't want to tell you anything in the first place," he told me. "But she can't go after this, she can't leave here until I go back to LA and she can't know. Don't think about the fact that you're lying to her; think about the fact that you are helping to keep her from getting killed." It was a dramatic statement and I flinched even though it wasn't the first time he'd said it to me in the last thirty minutes. _

"_But I only have your word for that," I argued. "How the hell do I know you're on our side Jasper? You're involved in something that you can't really tell me about and you still want me to put one of the most important relationships I have on the line. I should tell you to fuck the hell off; Rose would."_

"_Not if your life hung in the balance."_

"_How do I know that's even true?"_

"_Can you afford to take the chance?"_

_I sat back and looked out of the window at the speeding city around us, aggravated with the knowledge that he completely had me there. I couldn't afford not to believe him about this because it was potentially a literal life and death situation for Rosalie. Jasper may have been lying about a lot of things, may have life about a lot of things from the very moment we met, but there was no way he could have faked the pure look of panic in his eyes when I'd told him Rose was on her was back to LA. He had instilled a fear within me from the moment he burst into my apartment and that fear had not yet dissolved; probably wouldn't dissolve until I saw for myself that my best friend wasn't in the kind of trouble that neither of us could get her out of. _

"_I hope to god you're telling me the truth Jasper," I said quietly, knowing that he would hear me anyway in the tense silence of the car._

I hoped to god that my trust in him was not misplaced because not only was I going to have to lie to Rosalie, but I was going to have to lie to Bella too; something only a few days ago, I decided that I really did not want to do. I was gambling with a lot of very important relationships for Jasper and I really fucking prayed that I could trust myself, even if I couldn't fully trust him.

*

My Mom was surprisingly bright when I finally got to the home, though of course she thought I was still sixteen and we were in our old house. I had learnt, over the years, how to cope with this, but for the first couple of minutes, it was still a little hard to talk to her. One of the most difficult things about being with my Mom – apart from worrying about whether or not she was taking her medication as she had been instructed to – was never knowing what state of mind she would be in when you talked to her. She'd mistaken me and Carlisle for each other on many occasions, but sometimes she'd know exactly who we were, who she was and where she was. Other times, she would act like we were still living the lives we would have been had she not had this condition; had my father not left; and those were the hardest times to be around her. She would talk to me like I was still the ten year old boy who would follow my Dad around desperately seeking his approval and of course always failing to do so. Childhood memories, for me, were not the most pleasant ones after a certain point in my life, but when my Mom was in that frame of mind, I couldn't help but be transported back with her.

"You're looking troubled Edward," she observed, cutting the both of us a slice of cake that she'd made earlier in the day, like she always used to when I got back from school. "Girl problems?"

I almost choked on the juice that she had given me. "What?"

My Mom laughed, setting the piece of cake in front of me. "In my experience the only reason 16-year old boys look so heavily laden with problems is because of a girl. Your brother was the same."

I grinned at this; I couldn't help it. I liked the reminder of what Carlisle was like before things went to hell and we'd both had to grow up far too much in such a short space of time. It was nice to think of a time when all my brother had to worry about were girls and getting better grades. As for me at 16...well, girls were hardly even a blip on my radar back then; I had much more important things to occupy my time with. "It's not a girl," I told her after a while. "It's a friend of mine actually." I hadn't meant for the words to leave my mouth, but I guess I had been thinking about it all day so it was at the forefront of my mind.

"A female friend?" she prodded, a sly grin spreading across her face.

I chuckled. "No Mom," I assured her. "It's really not about a girl."

Her grin dropped for a moment as she leaned forward and studied me, trying to see if I was lying to her. She sighed after a moment or two and sat back, finally deciding that I was telling the truth and this really wasn't about a girl; she was disappointed. "Well, you can still talk to me about it," she said after a while. "I may even be able to give you the benefit of my wisdom."

I smiled at her and shook my head. "I don't think this is something you can help me with Mom." I didn't really want to start talking about the whole Jasper thing because if it wasn't safe for either Rose or me to know then it certainly wasn't safe for my mother to know anything about it. Besides, I doubted that she even knew who Jasper was; they'd never met and I had only very briefly mentioned him months ago.

She rolled her eyes at me. "I know you think you're all grown up now Edward, but you're never too old to need your mother."

I could have laughed at that because I knew that better than anyone and it was precisely because my mother was sitting with me, still thinking I was 16 and needed to hear it that I knew the absolute truth of the statement. Oh the irony. She was giving me a rather harsh look and I knew that I'd have to give her something or this visit would disturb her state of mind and no one wanted that. I couldn't give her the details, but I could talk to her about the one thing that was really bothering me; maybe she'd even be able to help; give me an outsider's view on the whole thing.

"I found out that a friend of mine's been lying to me for a while about some quite important things," I began. "He told me that I couldn't say anything about it; that I had to trust him and I agreed, but I don't know whether I should have."

"Do you trust him?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I don't know," I admitted. "I did. I trusted him before I found out about the lying and I want to trust him now. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt but..." I trailed off, not knowing how to finish that sentence.

"But you don't trust yourself," my Mom finished for me and I knew that she was right; she could give me the benefit of her wisdom in this situation. It seemed like no matter where her mind was at – what reality she thought she was living, she was my mother and she knew what I was thinking even before I did. It was a comforting thought.

I gave a deep sigh and smiled a little at my Mom, whose eyes shone with concern as she waited for me to unburden myself. "I just have a lot riding on my trusting him Mom," I explain. "I don't know whether I'm trusting the guy I thought I knew a few weeks ago or the guy I've seen since, but don't know one thing about." I ran my hand through my hair and then over my face, a sure sign that I was stressed out. I looked at my Mom who was, in turn, looking at me steadily. She was watching me as I watched her and for a while neither of us said anything.

"You know Edward," she said finally, taking a sip of her coffee. "You've always had so much faith in your friends and family, but you've never had it in yourself." It was amazing how my mother, who didn't know what day it was – what _year_ it was even – could come out and make that observation, as if she hadn't been mostly absent in my life for a very long time. "You're always second-guessing your decisions, but you shouldn't. You have a good head on your shoulders my boy and you should trust in that. Your father and I taught you well."

I had to press my lips together firmly at the last sentence. All my father ever taught me to do was leave when things got hard and give up when things weren't going the way you wanted them to. My father had taught me how to feel disappointment and if I was too hard on myself now it was because he had always taught me to be. There was a _lot_ of resentment there and it was all I could do not to spew it forth. My Mom – in whatever state of mind she was in – couldn't stand to hear neither Carlisle nor I say what we really thought about the man that abandoned us when we needed him the most. I don't know whether it was because she still loved him or felt a sense of loyalty to her husband and the father of her children, but my Mom always defended him. It made his leaving her all the more disgusting in my eyes. As a little kid, my Dad was everything I wanted to be and it hurt like hell that I wasn't the son he envisioned having. I guess Carlisle was always the favourite with Dad and I remember following them around wishing that he'd talk to me like he did my older brother. Now I wish I hadn't spent so much time trying to gain favour with a man that didn't know how the hell to take care of his family.

I spent another couple of hours with my Mom until the staff rang the bell as a signal that visiting hours were over for today. In some ways I didn't want to leave. It was nice being with my Mom and going back to a time when life wasn't so complicated. Well, that wasn't entirely true at all because my life at 16 was extremely fucking complicated. And yet...and yet there was still the hope that if I could just keep my Mom at home then everything would turn out as it should. If I could keep up the facade of being a normal 16-year old guy who had nothing to worry about except school and friends, everything would right itself. Now I knew that the world didn't work like that; had never worked like that. I guess I knew then too, but it was one thing to know something in theory and quite another to have lived the reality. I took one last look at the window that gave my mother's room light before I started the rental and drove back to the empty hotel room waiting for me.

*

My Mom was back in the present when I went to see her in the morning and just as bright as she had been yesterday; it seemed as if the new set of meds were agreeing with her. She didn't remember the conversation we'd had yesterday, which was both a good and a bad thing. Although I didn't really want to think about the entire situation anymore than I had to, I sort of hoped that my mother could give me some more unsolicited advice. Bella's messages last night had sent my mind working as to what I should tell her about Jasper. What I wanted to do was tell her exactly what Jasper had told me, not only because I didn't relish the thought of lying to her, but also so that I could have someone else to talk to about it. I wanted someone to share theories with who wouldn't think I had gone off the deep end completely. However, not only was I uncomfortable betraying Jasper's trust (which frankly shouldn't have bothered me all too much considering the position he'd put me in), I didn't want to betray Rose's either. I felt as if telling Bella the things I knew whilst keeping it a secret from Rosalie would be an even bigger betrayal of her trust in me than just telling no one anything. Yet, I had to tell Bella _something_; I knew she would be a little stung by the fact that she didn't find out from me that Jasper was back. Of course, telling her anything on Friday night had been the last thing on my mind, but because I couldn't really explain that without having to explain the rest, I couldn't excuse my oversight. Fuck. Jasper had tangled me up in his very complicated web and I was struggling to find a way out without sinking myself deeper into it.

"So, when am I going to get an invitation to your wedding Edward?" My Mom asked as we turned the corner to head to the back of the grounds. I had been looking at the green ground passing beneath me whilst we'd been moving, but at her question my head immediately snapped up to face her.

"What?"

She smiled and rolled her eyes. "I just wanted to know when you're going to make an honest woman out of Rosalie."

I couldn't help the look of disgust that must have crossed my face judging by my mother's laughter, which was not at all an insult to Rose. Rose was a fantastic woman; she was attractive and funny and loyal and smart and everything most men would be fucking insane to pass up, but I guess I was fucking certifiable because there had _never_ been anything but brotherly feelings towards her for me. This was a fact that my mother knew very well because she had tried several times over the years to suggest to both of us that we would be very happy together, but enjoyed teasing me about anyway. Whatever keeps her amused in this place right?

"You're so easy to kid around Edward," she smiled. "I would still like to know when you plan on finding yourself a nice girl and finally settling down though. What about Claire now that you're back in New York?"

I rolled my eyes at her comment and just carried on walking beside her, looking straight ahead instead of turning my face to meet her penetrating stare. My mother had met Claire three times during the course of our relationship and although she had never warmed to her in the way that she's warmed to Rosalie, she was still quite fond of my ex-girlfriend. She hadn't exactly been all too pleased when I told her that Claire and I had broken up because I was moving to California, though I'm almost positive that was largely due to the fact that I would be moving to the other side of the country.

"Mom, Claire and I didn't just break up because we wanted to live on different coasts," I tell her for probably the fifth or sixth time. "We just...it wasn't right; for either of us."

"Well how about other girls?" she pressed. "Your brother tells me that you're getting on very well with your co-star...what's her name?" My mother carried on musing and trying to recall Bella's name whilst I stood there with my mouth open, unable to believe that Carlisle would tell our mother about Bella. What were we, teenagers? It looked like I would be having words with my older brother as soon as I got back to the city.

"Isabella!" Mom exclaimed after a few moments of trying out other names that sounded nothing like Bella's actual name. "Isabella Swan, that's right isn't it?"

I nodded, still angry at my brother's big mouth and uncomfortable about this topic of conversation because my mother could see through me as if I was a freaking window. "It's nothing Mom," I tried to deny. "Carlisle's just making things up. Bella and I are just friends."

I made the mistake of looking in the direction of my mother and saw that she had a small, disbelieving smile playing on her lips. Wonderful. Because there weren't enough people in the world curious and suspicious about the nature of my relationship with Bella. "Just friends eh?" she asked, her green eyes dancing with mirth. "Just like you and Rosalie are just friends, yes?"

I nodded. "Yeah, just like that." I walked a little faster so that I was a few steps ahead of her and she couldn't see my face. I knew that she knew I was lying, but I also knew that she wouldn't talk to me about it if I made it perfectly clear that I didn't want to talk about it – and I _really_ didn't.

The concept that Bella and I had the same kind of relationship that I had with Rose was laughable and a complete fucking lie. There, okay, I admitted it. As much as Bella and I were just friends and as much as our relationship was nothing but platonic, it was _definitely_ nothing like the almost sibling-like bond that Rose and I shared. There was nothing sisterly about my thoughts regarding seeing Bella in that small towel, still wet, only two nights ago. I had never directly compared the two relationships before – maybe because I knew I wouldn't exactly like what I saw when I did – but now that I had, the notion that I was totally and completely fucked filled my brain.

* * *

A/N: I feel like I should apologise for writing the chapter this way after reading reviews about how anxious people were to find out about what trouble Rose was in and what the hell is going on with Jasper. Hands up how many people are annoyed that they still don't know what exactly is going on with Jasper? Sorry, but I would absolutely love to hear what people think is going on now that you have tiny bit more information. I already know and it won't change, but I would be interested in any theories if anyone wants to share. As for Bella and Edward...they are very quickly coming to the same kind of conclusion are they not...there are only so many times you can deny something when it's staring you in the face like that.

Thank you to everyone for reading. I know that the bi-weekly updates are a little bit frustrating and slow so if you're still reading this then thanks. Thanks also to everyone who reviews...much appreciated.


	24. Chapter 24 Intimacy Issues

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Stepehenie Meyer owns Twilight and real people own themselves.**

**Chapter 24: EPOV**

I had never suffered from panic attacks when I was a child or when I was a teenager or when I became an adult. I had never personally suffered from a panic attack, but I had seen enough of them and heard enough about them to know the signs of one. Your heart beat increases to an impossibly rapid speed that seems to be coming from around you instead of inside of you. Your palms start to sweat and when you wipe them on your jeans and touch your face you notice that your hands aren't the only place where this extra moisture is coming from. Your breathing starts to come in little gasps and no matter what you try you can't seem to even it out and there never seems to be enough air entering your lungs. You start to shake; first it's the extremities; you notice that you can't keep your arm still and then your whole body starts to move to the beat of a different drummer than everyone else's. There is a sense of dread; a sense that something terrible is going to happen or is already happening and then there's nothing. There is darkness and silence and for a while everything seems fine. Then you wake up to a crowd of people surrounding you, looking down at you with concern in their eyes because you've just collapsed in the middle of a very busy street. I had never experienced a panic attack first hand, but I had been one of the people that you would look up at after the blackout; I had been the concerned friend and passer-by.

They say there's a first time for everything and today, well today it wouldn't have surprised me in the least if I had my first panic attack. I had tried all week to not think about the next three days; I had tried and I think I had mostly been successful. However, last night was when the nerves really started to start shouting for attention and there was nothing else to silence them; they had kept me awake for the majority of the night and right now, they were the only things I could hear. I knew that this was coming; I had known from the very beginning that we would eventually get here, but I was not prepared in the slightest. I don't think I had ever done anything as nerve-racking as this and this wasn't even the real deal.

Holy shit.

I could feel my heart start to pound again and I willed myself to try and slow it down. I was a grown up and an actor. This was all part of the job and I just needed to get a fucking grip. I took a deep breath and tried to think of something else besides the fact that within the next ten minutes, I was going to have to simulate having sex with a girl that I was more than vaguely interested in. It shouldn't have been a problem. I was attracted to Bella and there was a level of trust between us that everyone said you needed to have when you were doing scenes as intimate as this one. It should have been a walk in the park and Sue had even made it easier by telling everyone else in the cast to leave. There was only myself, Bella, Sue and about ten or so crew members around the set now. Still, the lack of people did not make me any less nervous about this and the funny thing was this was not even my first sex scene. If anyone had a right to feel nervous, it should have been the 19-year old girl who was doing this for the first time and would be revealing a lot more than I would be – relatively speaking. Instead, Bella was the one who seemed to be perfectly calm about the whole thing; walking around the set like this was just another day at rehearsals and we weren't about to get almost naked in front of each other and a dozen other people.

My breathing picked up again. Oh crap. I really had to stop thinking about this.

I felt a hand on my back and turned to see warm brown eyes smiling up at me. "Hey," Bella greeted, sitting down on the bench next to me. I had gone around the back of the room that we were going to use for the first love scene rehearsal in order to try and get my thoughts together. "I was wondering where you'd disappeared off to."

I smiled back at her, but couldn't say anything because all my focus was going into trying not to go into a full blown panic and looking like a completely idiot. Bella seemed to understand my silence and we just sat there together for a while, enjoying each other's company even without having a conversation. Strangely enough her presence calmed me even though she was a walking reminder of what I would have to be doing all too soon. Just like it always had been, being with Bella was easy; it was comfortable and simple and it just made sense. If I could focus on that instead of the fact that I was going to be playing at having sex with a teenage girl that I desperately wanted to be something more than she was to me, I would be okay; I would get through this day and the next two without fucking up.

Things had changed ever so slightly with the way I viewed Bella since I got back from my visit with my Mom. Well, maybe it wouldn't have changed so much had I not had a conversation with Rosalie that I didn't even want to be a part of anyway. She had forced it upon me despite my protestations and I was left completely flabbergasted and in a completely different situation at the end of it.

*

_The journey back to New York wasn't anywhere near as stressful or as long as the journey out, which was a relief considering the kind of situation I would be going back to. I needed to talk to Jasper and hopefully get more information out of him than I currently had because then I had more of a clue as to what exactly I was trusting him with and how far I could go in this trust. It was going to be a tough sell, but if Jasper wanted me to keep Rosalie away from whatever he was hiding, I had to know everything. He was asking me to place an enormous amount of trust in him; he should be able to put the same amount of faith in me. _

_Rosalie was cooking when I finally arrived back at the apartment, which surprised the hell out of me because she didn't usually like to do any tasks that could be considered even remotely domestic. Not that she couldn't; Rosalie was in fact a very good cook. _

"_Oh!" she greeted when I turned the corner and found her in the kitchen. "The wanderer returns."_

_I rolled my eyes at her dramatics and very sad attempt at being funny. "I was gone for a day." I set myself down on the breakfast counter opposite to where Rosalie was standing over the stove, stirring something in a pan that smelled absolutely amazing. "What are you making?"_

"_Food," she replied, her back still turned to me. _

"_What kind of food?"_

"_The edible kind," she laughed. "I'm making some seafood risotto." She finally stopped stirring and turned around to face me. "It'll be ready in ten minutes. Tell me about Liz."_

_Rosalie was the only person on the planet that called my mother 'Liz' and I still didn't really understand why that was the case. They had met for the first time about a year after Rose moved to the US and ever since then that had been the name she referred to her as. My mother had always gone either by 'Elizabeth' or 'Beth' – never Liz, but she didn't seem to mind Rosalie's nickname for her at all, so who was I to question it._

"_She's doing really well actually," I reported, smiling at the truth of that statement. It was nice to be able to give good news when reporting about my Mom. "She asked when I was going to make an honest woman out of you."_

_Rosalie laughed. "Again? When will she learn that I wouldn't have you if you begged?"_

"_Please Rose," I scoffed. "I could have had you within three seconds of meeting you."_

_She raised her eyebrows, looking right at me; I looked back at her, challenging her to deny it – she didn't. Instead, she shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah, but then you opened your mouth and ruined it all."_

_I smiled. "Probably for the best anyway," I started. "I don't think I could cope with the violent mood swings."_

_Rosalie glared at me in mock-anger. "If you end up getting none of this delicious food, you only have your wise-ass comments to blame."_

_I didn't answer, instead choosing to give her a pathetic, pleading look; the kind of look that Oliver Twist must have given when he asked for more porridge. Rosalie just rolled her eyes at my attempt at humour. "As if that'll work on me," she dismissed. "I'm not Bella you know."_

"_What?" My expression must have morphed from poor little boy to one of utter confusion. "What about Bella?"_

_Rosalie's smile had turned into a mischievous sort of smirk that I did not like the look of. "Oh didn't I mention that she came over on Saturday night?" she asked. Her voice was all sweetness and innocence and I knew right away that I was in for a conversation that I didn't want to be having – again. What the hell was it about this weekend and people forcing me to talk about things that I would rather push to the back of my mind? Was it not my right to control which of my own thoughts should occupy the forefront of my mind? Where the hell was free will these days? _

_I shook my head even though she didn't need me to answer that at all._

_Her eyes widened in feigned surprise and I wondered, not for the first time, whether it was the wrong friend that was trying the acting thing out. Sometimes I swear Rosalie gave performances worthy of an Emmy, if not an Oscar. "Oh well, she came over looking for _you_ actually." The way she said you was deliberately pointed, as if she was giving me a clue as to where she was headed with this topic of conversation; as if I couldn't have guessed already. _

"_And I wasn't here so I assumed she then went away," I finished for her, knowing that this wasn't actually what had happened at all because Rosalie would not be telling me about the encounter in this manner if it had. _

_She shook her head slowly. "Oh no," she confirmed. "That would have been really rude if I'd sent her away without asking her if I could help or offering her a drink. I'm English Edward and if anything we are known for observing all the social niceties."_

_Social niceties? Right. Rosalie was about as concerned with social niceties as I was with being famous._

"_What did she want then Rose?" I asked, hoping to speed this conversation up because if it were up to her, this would go on all the way throughout dinner, I'm sure._

"_You," Rosalie answered immediately. _

_I felt my mouth drop and my eyes widen even as my brain processed the fact that this couldn't have actually been the purpose of Bella's visit. Rosalie must have just wanted to add a little bit of sensationalism to her reporting of the events of Saturday night in order to shock a response out of me. Well, it worked because I knew as soon as her eyes brightened that she'd gotten exactly what she wanted with that little declaration. I hastened to pull myself together and not give any more away in this absolutely ridiculous conversation we were having._

"_No really," I said, shaking my head and pretending as if I hadn't reacted strangely at all. "What did Bella actually come by for?"_

_Rosalie's eyes didn't leave my face for probably two whole minutes, making me wonder if she was trying to read my mind instead of just my extremely obvious expressions. Finally, she shrugged and turned back around to mess around with the pan that she had been stirring before. "She dropped by to ask you about Jasper actually," she finally told me. "Apparently she had-"_

"_Dinner with Alice and Jasper," I finished for her. "Yeah, I know. She messaged me about it whilst they were eating I think and I told her that I'd explain everything to her when I next saw her. I guess I should have mentioned that I wasn't going to be seeing her until at least tonight."_

"_Where would have been the fun in that?" Rose asked. Even though her back was to me once more I could hear the grin in her voice and it left me both curious and panicked. What the hell had she said to Bella last night? Surely she hadn't added to the growing list of people that were nearly harassing Bella about our relationship? Rosalie couldn't have embarrassed me that much, right?_

_I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. "Rose, please tell me you didn't say anything that I have to explain away by saying you missed your meds again."_

_Rosalie snorted and turned back around. "Oh ye of little faith," she said, shaking her head in a gesture of disbelief. "I didn't say anything at all Edward," she assured me and I breathed a little easier. "In fact, I found out quite a few things about your 'friend' Bella." She put finger quotation marks when she said the word friend, which didn't exactly fill me with confidence. _

_I sat and waited for her to reveal what it was she was obviously bursting to tell me. Rosalie liked to drag these things on and any gesture I made to try and speed up the process would only serve to do the very opposite. She knew she had a captive audience in me and she was going to relish in that fact until she couldn't prolong it anymore. We had played this game many times before and even though I would have probably done the same thing to her, I was slightly irritated that she was doing it this time. My relationship with Bella had taken a lot of criticism recently and I didn't want my own best friend to add to that because Bella may just turn around on Monday and decide that it wasn't worth all the trouble that she had been getting. True, I was also getting a lot of flak for the nature of our relationship, but I hadn't yet been brought up in front of the boss for it. It wasn't me that was getting accused of cheating on my long-term boyfriend. _

"_You know, she didn't think much of you at all when she first met you," Rosalie said minutes later as she handed me a plate of steaming risotto that looked like it had been taken straight out of a cook book. _

_I didn't look up from the food in front of me because I knew exactly what Rose would see if I did; disappointment and hurt. Now that I had fully accepted the fact that I was getting in way over my head with Bella, I could admit that I had been captivated by her from the first moment I saw her. Sure my interest in her now was completely different to my interest in her then, but I certainly wouldn't have said that I didn't think much of her when I first met her and I guess it stung a little bit that she was obviously not very impressed with me from the get go. Didn't people say first impressions counted for everything?_

_I just stayed quiet and ate the rice and seafood in front of me even though it didn't seem anywhere near as appealing as it had before. I couldn't help thinking back to the first day that I had met Bella, wondering whether or not I really had insulted her by being so surprised that she'd heard of the poem. I hadn't meant to insinuate that I thought she wasn't as well-read as me or that she didn't take her job seriously enough to do her research; it was just the first reaction that I had because so many people I had met didn't know the first thing about the original material for the many versions of the story that had been told. _

_After what seemed like hours and after many times of my remembering the exchange that Bella and I had had after the scene that first day, Rosalie felt it was time to divulge a little more information from Saturday night. "She certainly seems to have changed her mind though," she informed me, setting a beer down in front of me. "Something about not being able to forget your face and you only getting better looking the more time she spends looking at you. Now, I can't say that I've spent that much time staring at..."_

_I didn't really hear the rest of Rosalie's account of the Saturday night she spent with Bella because my mind had imploded in on itself as soon as I processed the words coming out of her mouth. Bella hadn't been able to forget my face when she first met me? Could that have been because we had seen each other the next day? Or was there a completely different reason? And Bella thought I only got better looking as she spent more time with me? I wasn't too proud to say that hearing these comments made me feel extremely good about myself; they definitely stroked the ego a little bit. _

_Now, I would say that I was fairly realistic in terms of my perception on how I looked. I didn't think I was god's gift to women, but I didn't think I was the next Quasimodo either. I could have spent more time at the gym and stopped drinking to get the perfectly defined abdominal and pectoral muscles that some men in Hollywood spent thousands on either surgery or personal trainers (sometimes both) to get; I could have taken more care of how I dressed; I could have tried to get my hair under control more when it was still long. Still, I hadn't exactly struggled to find a date since I hit puberty and I wasn't naive enough to think that was solely down to my sparkling personality. Women, just like men, were initially drawn to people because of physical attraction; the better you looked the more chance you had of getting a first date. After that was when things differed a little bit for the sexes. _

_The fact that Bella thought I became _more_ attractive made me want to puff out my chest or something equally masculine and ridiculous, but I doubted that Rosalie would have let that go without a biting comment that would have cut me down to size. I wanted to know what this meant in the great scheme of things. Could it be that this incredibly strong attraction I felt towards Bella wasn't just one-sided? I had never gotten the impression that Bella saw me as anything more than a friend, but then again, I didn't think that I'd given her the impression that I was interested in her. And I was; interested, I mean. Very interested, in fact. Too interested considering who she was and the current situation she was in; not just the fact that she wasn't really fully single, but also the fact that she seemed to be going through a lot of changes in her life and I didn't want to be just another thing throwing her off balance. I'd been through being a teenager and questioning your entire state of being; questioning who you are and what you're supposed to do. I didn't want to be another complication in Bella's life...I guess I wanted to be something that made it easier; something that made sense amongst the chaos._

"_Edward!" Rosalie yelled, snapping her fingers in front of my face. I guess I'd been spaced out for longer than it seemed. _

_I looked up at her annoyed face. "Sorry what?"_

_Rosalie gave me a unimpressed look before answering, making me aware that she didn't appreciate not having my full, undivided attention. "I asked what you're going to do about Bella?"_

_I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. "What do you mean?"_

_My best friend rolled her eyes and looked at me as if she was about to explain simple addition to a college graduate. "I mean it's bloody obvious that you're carrying a torch bigger than the Olympic one for that girl and now that you know she kind of fancies the pants off you too. What are you going to do?"_

_Well, leave it to Rosalie cut through the bullshit and ask the big questions. _

_What the hell was I going to do?_

*

As it turned out, what I would do for the next two days was not see Bella at all apart from on the set because her Mom was visiting, which was huge for her. Apparently, her Mom had turned up at her apartment on Sunday night, which was a complete surprise to Bella. She had told me about it on Monday morning, on the way to the set. Those rides to and from rehearsals were pretty much the only time we had spent alone until right now and I had tried not to let myself panic over that fact. I tried not to think that Bella had completely regretted what she told Rosalie during their admittedly alcohol fuelled conversation and was now too embarrassed to really talk to me anymore. I tried to focus on the fact that the two of us not spending as much time alone together meant that I didn't have to find a way not to tell her about Jasper without lying to her. I tried to focus on the positive step that her spending time with her Mom was in terms of the two of them working to rebuild their relationship. Besides, when we did talk on the set, we were fine; our interaction, as far as I could tell, was exactly the same as it had been previously. There was no awkwardness between us and she didn't seem to be avoiding me. In fact, she had invited me to dinner with her and her mother last night, but I had been too busy panicking about the sex scene today that I didn't think I could sit across from the woman whose daughter I would have to writhe against in some state of undress the very next day.

The door to the room that we had been sitting in was opened by one of the sound engineers still around, shattering the silence that we had enveloped ourselves in as kind of a comfort blanket; well, it was for me anyway. "Sue wants the both of you back on the rehearsal set. We're going to be ready to go in a couple of minutes."

The tiny amount of peace that I had been able to find in the silence between Bella and I evaporated with those words and I could feel myself start to panic once more. I knew that I was being ridiculous and I couldn't even begin to understand what it was that I was so terrified of, but logic had no place in my head right at that moment; I was putting in all my effort into trying to stop myself from hyperventilating.

Bella surprised the hell out of me by taking both of my hands in hers and looking right at me. Suddenly I didn't have to worry about the possibility of hyperventilating because I stopped breathing all together. I don't know how I could ever have let myself believe that the girl in front of me was just a friend; was just like Rosalie. I had been a fucking idiot and had been living so far in denial that now I was finally digging my way back up to the surface, I didn't know what to do about the truth of the situation surrounding me. And in about three minutes it was going to surround me in the cruellest of ways – with a dozen people watching and the moment being captured on camera for another dozen or so people to peruse later for criticism. Yeah. What a brilliant situation I now found myself in. Suddenly my breathing went back to the frantic pace it had been going at before Bella decided to take matters into her hands – literally.

"It'll be okay Edward," Bella told me, smiling to put me at ease. I snorted and raised an eyebrow to express my scepticism. She shrugged in response. "Well I'm glad to see it's not just me freaking the hell out about this."

I gave a dry laugh. "If this is you freaking out then you must think I need to take some sort of medication."

Bella's smile grew. "You can't see it, but on the inside I'm having a full blown panic attack – complete with the whole breathing into a paper bag bit."

"Well then maybe you'll know how to deal with the panic attack I'm about to have on the outside," I only half-joked. Bella's hands tightened around mine some more and I was surprised that I hadn't noticed before how warm they always seemed to be; warm and unbelievably soft. Or maybe I had noticed, but refused to acknowledge such things because those weren't things that crossed your mind about your friend. Well, they weren't if you were a guy and the last time I checked I still was, despite the drama I was creating about this whole afternoon.

"I don't know whether I should be insulted that you're having such a bad reaction at the thought of getting into bed with me Edward," Bella mused after releasing my hands and starting to walk towards the door.

It took me until she had opened the door that led to where we were going to be doing the scene to comprehend what she'd just said and when I did, I was thanking whatever god or deity was up there that she couldn't see my face. If this moment had been a scene from a movie, this would have been the point where I would be sipping some very expensive scotch or whisky thoughtlessly and the heroine would say something to make me spit out the fine liquor. Something feisty and unexpected that would leave me floored and searching for words that would leave the same reaction; or at least belie the fact that I'd had such a reaction to what she'd said. As it was, there was no expensive alcohol to come shooting out of my mouth (and quite possibly nose) and instead of grasping for a reply, I decided that really there wasn't one needed. If I thought too much about what she had just said, I would be having even more difficulties with doing this scene than I currently was.

When I stepped into the room that was being used to rehearse this scene, all I could see was the bed in the middle of it – probably because it was sitting underneath a huge spotlight though rather than because my eyes couldn't take in anything else. The rest of the room was in relative darkness and I saw Bella sitting on the edge of the bed, reading through her script even though I knew that those lines were inscribed into her memory already. Maybe she was just a little nervous after all.

"Finally," Sue called out from behind me; I hadn't even noticed that I'd passed her. "Let's get this show on the road then everyone. I want to be out of here before six tonight." She was ushering me towards the bed just as I bent my head down to see that it wasn't even three. How long did she expect us to take doing this? It was only one of the three scenes; the other two were being done tomorrow and any changes were going to be discussed and rehearsed on Friday in preparation for the start of shooting the week after.

I took a deep breath and tried to find that place in my head that I had given over to the character that I would be playing for the next three months. Usually it was pretty easy to slip into my Robert persona; I had spent been practicing a whole lot, after all, but my anxiety was preventing me from becoming anyone other than the nervous wreck that I was. I couldn't focus enough on any other feeling besides the slightly hysterical panic that had me firmly in a strangle-hold. I gulped as Sue called for the small camera that would be filming this for closer examination by her and a handful of other very important people later to start filming. I caught Bella's eye just as Sue's voice yelled out for us to start and suddenly it didn't matter whether or not I was in Robert's state of mind or my own because I had a feeling that both of us in this moment would have been feeling exactly the same thing when looking into the eyes of the woman that had taken over your mind without you even noticing.

*

_It had been an exhilarating night for the both of them, though for completely different reasons. She had spent the beginning of the night standing beside her parents and pretending to still be the girl that cared about the goings on of high society, marvelling at the fact that not only had she felt comfortable in this world before, but that she had revelled in it. She couldn't believe that she had been one of the girls that she was now ridiculing in her head and wondered whether she would still be if she hadn't met him all those months ago. She shook the thought away now as she looked at him standing across the room, unable to even comprehend that there could have been any other path her life could have taken. She felt as if everything that had come before the night she met him had simply been leading up to the meeting. She may have now been able to see how empty and shallow her life was before, but she would never regret growing up the way she did because if she hadn't, she may have never met him and that was just unacceptable._

_On his part, he'd just come back from performing in front of several thousand people, all of whom were singing the words he had written back at him. He had dreamed of nights like tonight since he had first picked up a guitar and now all his dreams were coming true. Actually, it seemed as if the things he hadn't even had the imagination to dream about were coming true and sometimes he had a very strange urge to pinch himself to see whether it was all real. He certainly had that exact thought when he opened the door to his hotel room as saw the face that had been behind his closed eyelids and in front of his open eyes for the past eight months. He had to blink several times to make sure that what he was seeing was actually her instead of the vision that he carried in his head of her for the many times when he couldn't actually be with her. _

_After the fifth time that he opened his eyes to her increasingly puzzled face, he finally let himself believe that she was actually in front of him and he couldn't cross the room fast enough._

"_I didn't think I'd see you until Sunday night," he breathed into her hair. He had picked her up and inhaled the scent of her, assuring himself that she was really here because even in his most vivid dreams, he could never recreate the exact scent she exuded. _

_She laughed as he put her back down on the floor, but didn't once loosen the arms that were wrapped around her waist. "I couldn't wait," she answered. "I had to come and see you."_

"_What about your parents?"_

"_They're still at my grandfather's," she informed him. "They won't be back until Sunday and they think that I'm with Kate so..."_

_He pulled back from her and gave her the happiest smile that she had ever seen; a smile that warmed her to the very depths of her soul. She loved that she made him this happy because words couldn't truly capture just what he meant to her; just how much she loved him; just how much he had changed her life. _

"_I get you for a whole weekend?" he asked, feeling like his face was about to split into two along the plane of his lips, but not really caring as long as he got to spend the next forty-eight hours with the girl in his arms. When she nodded her confirmation, he picked her up again and spun her around, revelling in her laughter, which put shame to every piece of music he could ever hope to write. _

"_God I love you," he told her when he finally slowed down the twirling and put her feet back into contact with the ground. Ever since he had first said those words to her four months ago, he had said them again and again every single day; he would never be able to say it to her enough because even though those words meant everything, they could never really capture everything he felt towards her. He loved her more than he could comprehend and certainly more than he could ever express._

_She smiled softly up at him and brought her right hand to trace the contours of his face, relishing the way his eyes closed ever so slightly when her fingers brushed his lips. She stood on her tip toes and ever so softly followed the path her fingers had taken only seconds before with her own lips. "I love you too," she whispered against his now partly opened mouth. She grinned a little at the way his breathing sped up in reaction to her, proud at the fact that she affected him in much the same manner he affected her._

_There were several second where the both of them didn't move and the only sound in the room was their increasingly ragged breathing. They were both thinking exactly the same thing in that moment; that even though words were never going to be enough to express their true emotions regarding the other, they always had actions. After all, didn't everyone say that actions spoke louder than words? So if they words that proclaimed love were so powerful then surely the act of making love would be a thousand times more so. _

_The decision was made in a split second; or perhaps it had been being made for months because without any real conscious thought or any more verbal communication between the two of them, suddenly hands, arms, feet, legs and mouths were moving with much more purpose than before. There was a sense of urgency between them, not because either thought that the moment might pass – the moment would never pass – but because it had been too long. They had felt these emotions building from the moment that had laid eyes on each other on that otherwise quite forgettable night in Paris and for reasons neither could think of at the moment, they hadn't thought to express them in this way before now. How stupid they were. _

"_Very stupid," she said into the room that was to bear witness to just how much they truly felt for one another. _

"_Hmm," he agreed, somehow knowing exactly what she was talking about even though every part of his mind and body was otherwise occupied with trying to truly convey to the woman he loved just what that meant. _

_When they remembered that night in the future, they would only see flashes of the events that happened; pictures that weren't cohesive and didn't have a chronological order. They would convince themselves that everything they remembered had been heightened by their circumstances, both at the time it happened and when they were looking back. However, they would both know deep down that nothing else in their lives would ever be as real as the night that they had expressed their love through gentle touches and whispered words of tenderness. Nothing would ever make more sense than the night when their passionate need and cries of ecstasy filled every part of the souls that they had never even realised had holes before. _

_This was not the first time she had done this; the world she had lived in didn't exactly confer innocence to the youth that bloomed within it, but this was the first time that she had felt the emotions connected with the actions. This was the first time when lust and love, when need and want, when the physical and the emotional were one in the same. This man who was moving underneath her, above her, who was all around her and within her in every possible way; he was everything. He was all that mattered and all that would ever matter now and in the future. The rest of the world would never be as important to her; would never exist unless he was with her. She had thought she alone understood how much she had felt for him before, but when she reached the peak of the explosion of emotions within her, she knew she had been wrong. Even she hadn't grasped until that very moment how everything about her was wrapped up in him now. She was overwhelmed with the intensity of it all and the tears that sprang to her eyes were the only way the emotions could make themselves known._

_He felt her shaking above him; heard her finishing cry and wanted to just freeze that single moment in time even though it no longer seemed like either of them existed within the physical limits of the rest of the world. Although his childhood had been filled with tales of God and heaven, his adult life had never had any religious presence, until the moment when he opened his eyes and met her water-filled gaze. There had to be something or someone that had created the magnificent creature who had literally turned his life on its head and held his heart in her tiny hands. She couldn't have been the product of chance because everything about her had surely been made so that she would become his entire world. He used to think that all he cared about was music but he was fairly sure after tonight – even after the high he had experienced earlier – that it could all end tomorrow and he wouldn't care as long as she was still with him. Nothing could compare to the way he felt now, having finally shown her the extent to which he loved her. _

_There were no words spoken between them after the experience that they had shared. It would have seemed ridiculous to try and speak after finding that words really were never going to be enough of an expression of their love for one another. Instead, he enveloped her in his arms and she tried her best to tangle herself around him so that by the time they both fell asleep they were nothing but a jumble of limbs; a jumble of limbs with the most content smiles on their faces. _

_*_

"Oh shit! Ow!"

I felt Edward withdraw the arm that wasn't trapped beneath me on the ridiculously comfortable 'hotel' bed beneath us moments after my elbow made contact with something rather harder than a pillow. I lifted my head to see what was happening and found that had drawn his head back from where it was before, only a few centimetres from mine so that he could cover his right eye.

"Oh!" I parroted his earlier exclamation, realising that the relatively hard thing that my elbow had made contact with must have been Edward's eye. "Shit! I'm so sorry Edward." I tried to move my hand to reach out towards the area that I had injured, but before it could make contact with any harmed part of Edward, Sue's voice called out to us from the darkness of the surrounding area and I was suddenly very aware that we weren't in fact alone; that we had been in a scene that was actually being filmed – albeit never going to be seen by any member of the general public.

Lights turned on, eliminating the darkness that has been cloaking everyone else's presence from us whilst we had been going through what was a very important scene in the movie and what had caused me to vomit three times this morning before I even got to work. It had been a good job really that my Mom had shocked the hell out of my by showing up on the doorstep of my apartment because if she hadn't been around to keep my mind somewhat off the task looming ahead of me, I would have completely lost it; much like Edward had been close to doing earlier. As it was, I had far too much to do on the parental front to really be able to concentrate on the fact that this scene – and scenes very similar to it – were going to be rehearsed...until I was alone in the night and in the early hours of the morning.

I hadn't had a decent night's sleep for a while and filming hadn't even really started yet. Quite apart from this being the very first love scene that I would be partaking in, the fact that I was going to be doing this with Edward was freaking me the hell out. I would equate it to the sort of feeling you have before you finally lose your virginity for the first time, but I had never felt like this. I didn't feel as if I was going to vomit every single time I saw Jake. I never had to cut conversations short with him because all I could see was the two of us in the positions and situation described in the well-worn script I constantly had with me. I couldn't get over the fact that I would be having simulated sex with Edward Cullen even though I had known for months that this would be a very real part of the film.

"Okay, everyone take 5!" Sue called out after examining Edward's eye for herself. "Go and put an ice pack on it or something," she instructed Edward.

"An ice pack?" Edward asked, sceptical that he would find that around here.

"Or run some cold water over it," Sue offered instead. "I don't know...whatever makes it feel better. We still have the rest of the scene to run and I want to try and change some of the movements in the middle of it."

Hearing her talk about it reminded me of how technical it all was, but no matter what everyone else had told me about filming sex scenes, it sure as hell didn't feel technical just a few minutes ago. That had been my problem, really. I had been in the business for years and I'd heard many an actor and actress claim first hand that sex scenes were embarrassing and awkward, but they didn't feel anything like the real thing; there was no privacy when you knew that people were watching all around and a spotlight was trained to where you were both lying. There was no intimacy when every single movement had been thought of by someone else; when hands and legs were choreographed to be in a certain place at a certain time. It wasn't natural; there was no way you could mistake the two situations with each other even if you'd never actually had sex with someone before. When I first read the script for this film, that had been what was going through my mind. I was apprehensive about the prospect of doing the scenes, but it was also a new challenge for me; something to prove that I was actually a grown up now without having to play a stripper.

I should have known really, as soon as Edward had auditioned, that these scenes weren't going to be anything like everyone had described. When Edward and I were in a scene, sometimes it was extremely hard to tell if we were still playing at the characters that we were supposed to represent or if we were just playing ourselves in a different set of circumstances. I had always thought that the ease at which we put ourselves into the shoes of the characters that we were bringing to life could only make the film better; make everything more believable. And I guess I was right because from the moment that Sue had called for us to start until Sue's voice rang out again to halt the proceedings, everything had felt real enough. The gentle touches and the passionate kisses had my head spinning in the same way I had always imagined Kristen's to have been when I read this scene. My body rang out with want for the man that enveloped me in his presence and it was only because I had rehearsed this scene so many times that I said the right lines in the right places, and more importantly, that I had said the right name.

You hear horror stories of people crying out someone else's name in the throes of passion with their significant other and you simultaneously cringe and laugh at the situation because who the hell would be stupid enough to do that? Well, now I had an appreciation for just how easy that was to do because even though I was saying her lines and living out parts of her life; in that twenty minute scene that I had just done, there wasn't an iota of Kristen Stewart. It was all me and I didn't know what the fuck that all meant, but I somehow didn't think that it was the greatest thing to ever happen to me.

My conversation with Rosalie had been revealing to say the least – and not just for her – but it was a conversation with my mother that had really shone a light on everything that had been happening with Edward and I the past couple of months. It had happened only yesterday, whilst we walked back from dinner in the Village and in light of the very heavy and serious things that we had been discussing from the moment I opened the door to her, the conversation had come out of nowhere, but I couldn't have been happier discussing it with her because this was what mothers and daughters were supposed to do; this was what I had been missing the past three years.

*

"_So, I heard about you and Jake," my Mom started after a few minutes of us walking in silence through the still busy streets of New York._

_I looked at her questioningly._

"_You're brother told me," she clarified after seeing the confusion on my face._

_I nodded. During the time I had to make the decision about the immediate future of mine and Jake's relationship, I had wished more than ever that my Mom and I had been on good enough terms so that I could have talked to her about it; could have asked for her advice. However, now that she was broaching the subject, I found that I didn't know what to say to her. Well, not about the Jake thing anyway. To be perfectly honest, everything that had been happening the past week or so had pushed Jacob pretty much to the back of my mind and then suddenly I felt incredibly guilty for thinking that way. What did it mean? Was I supposed to be thinking about him more than I was? Was he thinking about me?_

"_Bella?" _

_I had obviously been silent too long, lost in my own thoughts. "Sorry," I said, shaking my head clear. "I was just..."_

_My Mom nodded even though I hadn't exactly known how I was going to end that sentence. "I know how hard a break up can be Bella," she was saying. "It's okay to be sad about it and not feel quite like yourself."_

_I shrugged, now really not wanting to tell her that I wasn't exactly crying into my pillow at night about it. In fact, I hadn't even come close to crying about my break-up with Jake since the night of it actually happening. If my Mom thought that being upset about it and still not really being over the whole thing was the normal response, she would not find my...I guess _lack_ of a response...the best way to react to the situation. _

"_You know, you can talk to me about it," my Mom urged. "I know that we're...that everything's just beginning to be fixed with us, but..." My Mom trailed off and shrugged. "I guess I just feel like we missed all that boy talk you know? I'm just trying to compensate or something. I'm being stupid. I mean of course you wouldn't want to talk to me about it...I've only been back in your life for-"_

_I stopped walking and faced her. "Mom, seriously stop," I said. "I _do_ want to talk to you about it," I assured her. I started walking again before continuing with my explanation. "It's just that I don't know what you'll think about what I have to say about me and Jake."_

_My Mom looked at me, confusion crossing her features for a moment before it cleared and she gave me the sort of comforting smile that she used to give me when I was younger and felt like everything was going horribly wrong. It told me that everything would eventually be okay again; that everything would work out just the way I wanted it to. Even though I was a lot older and knew that life really didn't work like that, it made me feel better because even though not everything worked out, there were some things that you really could rely on and it was those important things that got you through everything else._

"_I don't feel sad," I finally told her. "I mean, it's not like I _didn't_ feel upset about it and it's not like I feel glad that it happened, but..." What I wanted to say was that there wasn't the big gaping hole in my life that I had always imagined there would be if Jacob were ever to be removed from it. However, even in my own head I could tell it wasn't the most sensitive thing to say and I really didn't want my Mom to get the impression that I hadn't cared about Jake because I had...I still did. I still loved him...it was just that maybe...I don't know. There were a lot of maybes floating around in my head these days._

"_You're not crying yourself to sleep every night blasting out some horrific 80's power ballad," Mom finished for me. _

_I chuckled and nodded. "To be honest, I haven't really thought that much about it."_

_She shrugged. "Maybe that's why you haven't felt all that upset about the whole thing. Maybe you're still in a stage of denial."_

_I thought about this possibility for perhaps a fraction of a second before discounting it. If I still thought of Jacob as my boyfriend then maybe there could be an argument made about my being in denial about our separation, but ever since my visit to Sam, that hadn't been the case. I thought of myself as single and it hadn't been as hard as I first anticipated it would be, but I couldn't pinpoint the reason why. Then again, the life I was living in New York was not the life I would be going back to in LA. There were no memories of my time with Jacob here, no special places that we'd been to together; nowhere we had shared a particularly significant moment of both our lives. Everything here was removed from my life back home and perhaps part of the reason that I hadn't felt the loss as acutely as I expected to was because right now, I wasn't the Bella that had been with the same guy since she was 15; I was the Bella that had a job to do and was too busy trying to find herself in the midst of trying to be someone else. _

_Hmmm...I guess thinking about it like that made me feel a little better about the fact that I wasn't absolutely devastated about the breakdown of my three year relationship. It made me feel as if I wasn't a completely heartless bitch who didn't know how lucky she had been all this time to have such a wonderful guy who loved her. _

"_Then again Bella, sometimes things just end because they've run their course." My Mom's voice was quiet and she was looking away from me as she said this, as if afraid of my reaction to her words. She stopped the both of us in our tracks when she stepped in front of me and looked at me straight in the eyes. "Did you ever think that the reason you haven't felt as bad as you thought you were going to is because deep down you knew it was going to come to this?"_

_I started shaking my head before I even really thought about it and although my mother didn't look 100% convinced that I was telling her the truth, she shrugged her shoulders and stepped back beside me so that we could carry on walking. The answer had been automatic, but it hadn't been true. As much as I hated myself for it, the thought had crossed my mind that maybe Jacob wasn't everything I thought him to be. No, that wasn't fair; it was _us_ that possibly may not have been everything I thought it was. Ever since I had read the script for this film – possibly before, even, when I read the poem – it had started to bother me that I hadn't experienced the kind of emotion. Then, I had put it down to the fact that it was impossible to feel like that for someone else; the poem was the writings of a man who had lost the woman he loved – it wasn't exactly written by someone in a frame of mind that could be trusted to really represent the reality of relationships. _

_Now...well now I wasn't so sure._

_My Mom and I were back in my apartment before I asked her the question that I had wanted to ask since this film had started to plant seeds of doubt into my head._

"_Mom?" I asked as we sat down to watch some early 90's movie._

_My mother turned her head to look at me, her eyebrow raised in question._

"_What was it like when you and Dad met?"_

_My Mom's face scrunched before her lips turned up into a wistful smile. "It was hell," she told me, laughing at my shocked face; it wasn't exactly what I had expected her to say. "I was a freshman at high school and your Dad was one of the more popular juniors – varsity this and varsity that. I saw him at lunch and I wanted him and I knew that it'd never happen." I grinned with her when I heard the recollection. I had heard tales of my father's popularity and high school career in sports before and I had never been able to reconcile it with the image I had of him. _

"_Anyway, I spend all of freshman year crushing on your father," my mother continued, the look in her eyes nostalgic and even though I wanted to cringe at her choice of vocabulary, I was hanging on to every word she said. "Then sophomore year came and..." My Mom trailed off and looked thoughtful for a moment before she continued. "Well, let's just say that I kind of filled out a little." I couldn't control the horror on my face as she told me the details, but Mom didn't notice because even though she was turned in my direction, her eyes were focused at a point in the past._

"_So I started dating a few guys and I guess that gave me confidence," my Mom paused and looked up at me, anxiety written very plainly all over the face that had previously been more wistful than anything. "Ignore that last bit," she instructed._

_I repeated the last words I had heard in my head and didn't understand what had caused her to look so nervous. "What?"_

"_Well, admitting that my confidence level went up a few notches by having a few guys be interested in me isn't exactly the best example I could set my teenage daughter is it?" she explained._

_I laughed. "Mom, it's hardly like I'm an impressionably 13 year old," I reassured her. "And I know what you meant."_

_She looked at me for a second, still unsure, but she must have decided that I wasn't suddenly going to turn into one of _those_ girls that only got validation of who they were from a guy because she carried on. "I started dating a guy from the football team your father was on and all the guys were pretty close. They'd hang out with each other all the time and so I spent quite a bit of time with your Dad."_

"_He was...well, he wasn't exactly the guy I had built him up to be in my head," my mother resumed with her story. "He wasn't any worse or any better than the image I had of him...just different and I found that I enjoyed getting to know the real Charlie much more than I had enjoyed fantasising over the made up one in my head."_

"_We became friends outside of the whole varsity football scene and even when I broke up with John and your father went off to college, we kept in touch. I'd see him sometimes when he came home for the holidays and then near the end of my junior year your father showed up outside my house in the middle of the night."_

"_It wasn't even me that first found him there; it was your grandfather and he was not best pleased at having been woken up by someone he thought was just another drunken frat boy. If I hadn't woken up, I think Charlie would have spent the night in jail." My Mom laughed at her memories and there was something in her eyes that I realised I recognised from my childhood memories; it was adoration. My parents had always been quite open with their adoration for each other, which was another contradiction that existed in my father; my father who didn't like to talk about his feelings or even fully express them never left my Mom in any doubt as to how much she was loved by him. _

"_When I did finally managed to calm your granddad down enough to let me talk to Charlie alone, he told me that he couldn't spend another second pretending like I was just his friend. He made all the grand declarations of love and passion and promised to give me the world."_

"_And you told him you felt the same and the rest is history?" I finished for her, guessing from the existence of my brother and I that she didn't tell him to take a long walk off of a cliff. _

_My mother laughed and shook her head, which surprised me. "Goodness no," she confessed. "I'd just started dating someone and I told him that as much as I appreciated his...commitment and his feelings; as much as I cared about him, I couldn't just drop everything because he had suddenly decided to let me in on his thoughts."_

"_Really?" I was surprised not because I couldn't picture my mother saying those words – I was betting she actually missed out a few choice ones – but because I knew that they'd gotten married pretty much as soon as she finished high school and surely finally getting together in junior year would have fit in with that time line._

_My mom nodded her head in the affirmative. "He didn't know what to say or do after that, so he kind of just apologised and left." Now that was more like the response I would expect of my father. "I went to see him the day after just to check that there was no weirdness between us because I still wanted to be his friend."_

_I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. "I don't get it Mom," I tell her finally. She raised an eyebrow to encourage me to go ahead and ask my question. "How did you two end up married by the end of senior year if you didn't get together that night?"_

_My Mom shrugged. "I always told you it was kind of a whirlwind romance with Charlie."_

"_Which it wasn't," I pointed out. Now that I knew it had started out during my mother's first day of high school, I no longer bought the 'caught up in the moment and just decided to pop into the nearest chapel' story. _

"_It was!" My mom insisted. "I told you before Bella, it only took three months from when we started dating to the time we were walking down the aisle – much to your grandfather's displeasure might I tell you."_

"_But your story started so long before that," I pointed out. "You'd wanted to be with him since freshman year."_

_My Mom shook her head. "No," she corrected. "I was attracted to him since my first day of freshman year, but I didn't want to be with Charlie until I got to know him because I didn't know who the hell it was that I wanted to be with before that. You can let yourself get carried away in the fantasy of who someone is Bella, but unless you know who they really are, you don't want to be with them at all; you'd rather have the fantasy."_

_I thought for a moment of what she was saying, trying to fit that answer into something I could work with so I wouldn't have to ask her any more questions. The conversation we were having right now had gone a little astray of the path I had intentionally wanted to take it down, but I had gotten a little carried away with hearing my Mom talk about her life before she became my mother. I liked getting a glimpse into my parents' lives before they had responsibilities and to be honest, it was really nice to have my Mom talk to me so openly after years of single syllable responses and tense, forced conversation. _

_I couldn't really work with what she'd told me. I didn't think I was living in any sort of fantasy – well, not one that I didn't know was a fantasy. I would have to ask the question that would totally tip her off that something was going on with me – if she hadn't already clue in on that._

"_So how did you know?" I asked her after a few more moments of thought, asking myself whether I really wanted to open this whole can of worms for everyone. My Mom raised an eyebrow in question and I clarified. "How did you know that Dad was it for you? After all that time, how did you decide?"_

_My Mom didn't say anything for a long time and I thought she wasn't going to answer me, but instead ask me why I was asking such a thing. However, she didn't question my motives at all and it appeared as if her silence was just her way of gathering her thoughts because after inhaling deeply, she spoke. _

"_Because even though he had never really thought of me as a friend, he tried to be for the longest time. Because I could talk to him about anything even after he told me he loved me and I told him I was seeing someone else. Because he became everything when I wasn't paying attention." My Mom shrugged. "I don't know Bella...I don't think I can explain it, but one day I woke up and everything just clicked into place and I couldn't believe that I had been stupid enough not to see it before. It was just so clear; my relationship with Charlie was easy and hard and it was simple and yet the most complicated thing in my life; it was comfortable and awkward as hell sometimes, but at the end of the day, every single time I thought about him, every single time I was with him, I felt as if I was where I should have been. It was just _right_ and I couldn't fight it anymore." _

_My Mom chuckled to herself and looked up at me, a wry smile twisting her lips. "I know it may not be the most politically correct thing for someone who is somewhat a feminist to say, but everything made sense when I was with Charlie; I made sense. And Bella if there's someone who makes you see yourself and accept yourself as well as encouraging you to reach the person you want to become...that's how you know. That's how you know that they're it because nothing else matters in life as much as that."_

*

Even that night, I didn't fail to notice that my mother hadn't said _'if you ever find someone who makes you see yourself'_; she seemed to think that I had already found that person. Had I? I don't know anymore because as much as I was trying to sort my life out and fix the problems I had turned my back on for too long, I couldn't seem to stop questioning whether I really knew myself at all. It felt like I had an image of who I was in my mind and I had been living my life in order to live up to that for the past who knows how many years. I was having a god damn identity crisis in the middle of everything else and Jacob was just another victim. I still loved him, but my conversation with my mother had made it damn clear that I didn't see Jake the way she'd seen my father; the way she still saw my Dad.

I had believed the love portrayed in the film was a dramatised version of the real thing, something no real life romance could ever live up to. And I guess it was, but the underlying message; the real emotions behind the Hollywood exaggeration – they were _real_. I saw them all around me: Esme and Carlisle, my parents, my brother and his girlfriend – even Alice and Jasper. I had always believed that Jake and I were like that and maybe we were when I was fifteen and caught up in my very first romance, but somewhere along the line, we'd lost whatever it was that all the other couples had.

And yet...yet, I still did love him and I couldn't reconcile that in my mind with the fact that I didn't want him like I wanted Edward. Because holy hell, did I want Edward Cullen. And it wasn't just because when he was looking at me in that scene I felt as if even if I couldn't see who I was, he definitely could. It was because when my mother was talking; when she was describing what it felt like to just know something was right, I hadn't thought about Jake. What I had been thinking about were flashes of bronze hair and green eyes that had been ever present in the darkness of my room ever since that extremely strange moment with us nearly a week ago.

"Okay everyone...let's do it again from the top and hopefully this time no one will get injured," Sue called out, yanking me away from my rather painful realisations.

I hadn't noticed Edward walk back in from wherever he had gone to try and prevent his eye from swelling, but when we made eye contact as the lights around us dimmed again, he smiled at me and I knew that I was really, really fucked. I noticed the way his eyes locked onto mine and the way he swallowed thickly.

Maybe we were both fucked.

* * *

A/N: I know...three weeks instead of two. There was a presentation for work that I had to get ready and so I didn't have as much time to write as I would have liked and I really struggled with this chapter. In case you're thinking that there are gaps in this chapter, don't worry about it. I don't want to give anything away, but nothing important will get skimmed over (as if you didn't already know that with the length of this thing). So, yeah, I apologise again.

Thanks to everyone who reads and thank you to everyone who reviews. Also, to those who mused out loud (or in writing) about the Jasper situation, I enjoyed reading your theories, but I'm not going to say whether or not anyone was right. You'll all find out soon enough.

Oh...for everyone over 18 who wants to read what really happens in the scene...I have written an outtake of sorts, which I will post in the next couple of days. Think of it as another way to apologise for the delay, so look out for it.


	25. Chapter 25 Meetings and Reconciliations

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 25: BPOV**

Normally, it takes about three seconds to knock on a door. You just hit your knuckles against the hard, wooden surface repeatedly to make a sort of pounding noise. The sound transmits through the door, travels through the air and whoever is on the other side hears it and knows someone is waiting on the other side for entry. I, however, seemed to be having some sort of weird aversion to making my hand connect with the rectangular structure in front of me. I had been standing in front of the green door for the past five minutes – far longer than it should have taken to knock – and still I wasn't making any headway with the whole making my presence known part. I was extremely nervous. No, perhaps didn't quite convey the ball of tension that was currently my inner organs. When I was nervous I bit my lip and couldn't seem to keep my hand still. Now, I could feel my heart pounding against my chest and my palms starting to sweat and I seriously thought about turning around and just going back without doing what it was I had actually come to do. He probably wouldn't want to come anyway. I had asked him several times during the past four days to join us, but he had always declined for the same reason; he didn't want to intrude on the time that we had together. He wouldn't exactly say yes now when it was her last night in the city. Still, I felt as if this meeting was something that needed to happen and I didn't want to prolong it. Edward was a huge part of what had prompted me to write my mother the letter that had brought her to my doorstep on Sunday night and I thought it was only right for me to share this with him. I pushed back the little voice in my head that told me there was another reason I wanted my Mom and Edward to meet because even though I had acknowledged _those_ particular thoughts of Edward, I didn't want them to colour this. This wasn't something I was doing because I was hopelessly and recklessly attracted to Edward; this was something I was doing because he was my friend and he was important to me, so he should meet someone else important in my life; like I had met so many important people in his.

It was amazing that I _could_ be doing this at all. I would have laughed darkly at anyone who had told me a week ago that I would be inviting Edward to dinner with my mother and I; I would have laughed and then turned around and probably cried in the privacy of my own apartment, knowing it would never be possible. However, apparently, not only was it possible, but it was an actual reality. The past few days with my Mom had been surreal and sometimes I actually had to pinch myself to make sure that this wasn't some incredibly realistic, cruel dream. Not that it had been all smooth sailing since she arrived; in fact our first real conversation after she arrived was the most difficult I'd ever had with anyone – my goodbye with Jacob included.

*

_I was sitting opposite of my mother, feeling the tension settle all around us, almost thick enough to make my breathing a little harder than usual. We had been silent since I offered her a drink and she refused it. I wanted to say so many things to her, but didn't even know where to start and maybe she was having the same problem because there was a storm of emotions in her hazel eyes and yet she was barely moving. If I hadn't been able to see Renee's chest moving up and down, I would have thought she'd been turned into stone. Still, it wasn't as if I was doing any better. My problem, however, wasn't being too still, but rather trying to keep still at all. It took a lot of concentration for me to not get up and start walking around the room, or reach for a cigarette. I didn't think my mother would be ecstatic with me lighting up in front of her when she detested the habit. _

_I wracked my brain for something to say – _anything_ in fact. I thought about asking her how everything was back in LA, how her flight was, where she was staying. I thought about asking her a million different questions, but the only one I really wanted to ask was the one I didn't have the courage to bring up; why was she here?_

"_You must be wondering why I'm in New York." Did I say what I was thinking out loud or had my mother acquired the ability to read minds?_

_I nodded my head, too surprised at the fact that she'd basically plucked the words from my head to be able to utter actual words. I looked to her just in time to find my Mom turning her own head to look out of the window to my right. _

"_I got your letter," she informed me, still not actually looking in my direction. I nodded again, wondering whether she could even see the movement. "I'm sorry I didn't write back," she continued. "I didn't really know what to say."_

"_It's...I understand," I told her. I wanted to confess that I'd had a hard time writing the letter myself. I wanted to tell her that I spent days contemplating what to say and I'd started it more times than I could count. However, I didn't want to make the conversation about me because I wanted to know what my Mom was thinking; I wanted to know specifically what had brought her 3,000 miles to my doorstep._

_There was silence again and I squirmed in my seat. I wanted to know what my mother was thinking, what she expected by coming here. I wanted to know what she wanted me to say, what she wanted me to tell her. What I wanted most of all was the ability to see the future and then I could see whether this worked out the way I wanted it to or whether it was going to break both of us completely. _

"_I thought it would be easier to see you and have a conversation face to face, but I got that wrong," my mother admitted. "I feel like I don't know what to say to you Bella. Do I tell you exactly how much it hurt hearing those words come out of your mouth all those years ago? Do I tell you it felt like someone had put a knife in my chest to see you _want_ to become someone your Dad and I always taught you better than to want to emulate?"_

_Renee had turned her head towards me and I wish that she hadn't. I knew that I'd hurt her beyond what I could probably comprehend, but seeing the anguish in her eyes; witnessing the feelings of betrayal for myself was a completely different story. I could feel the tears gather in my eyes, but I don't think I was crying them for myself. Yes, I felt guilty and yes I wish to god I could take it back or say something to make my Mom forget, but more than anything, I _really_ understood her hurt. _

"_I don't want to rehash the past Bella," Renee told me, her voice cracking. "I don't want to keep living in the shadow of what happened back then, but I don't know how to move past it. I don't know how to get back what we had because I don't know where the hell I went wrong."_

_I shook my head vigorously. "You didn't," I argued. "Mom, you didn't do _anything_ wrong. It wasn't you. I was stupid and I was so caught up in everything that for a moment, I completely forgot who I was. I just wanted so badly to fit in; to be like everyone else and be part of the crowd."_

_Slowly, my mother turned to face me and I could see the tears running down her cheeks. I was slightly desperate for her to understand that this had nothing to do with how she and my father raised me; they had done everything right. My parents had always taught me to value the important things and to know my own mind, but when you're just 15 and had never really belonged anywhere other than with your family, the chance to be part of a collective was tempting. It was a shitty excuse and it didn't give me a right to act the way that I did, but my Mom had to see that this had never been because she did a poor job of raising me; it was just that I made a poor job of reflecting that. _

_I took a deep breath in, trying to stop myself from sobbing even though there was no controlling the leaking coming from my eyes. "Mom, I wish I could go back and tell myself back then that being part of the crowd is only worthwhile if the crowd is a bunch of people that respect who you are already, not who they want you to become. I wish I could undo it all so that I didn't have to hurt you, but I can't." I paused for a moment to ensure that I could still talk over the lump in my throat. My mother's gaze never left me. "All I can do is tell you how sorry I am and prove to you that I _do _love you and respect you. I know I didn't show it then and I may not have shown it much in the past three years, but I have always valued your presence and guidance in my life."_

_I was crying in earnest now and had to break off to gather myself once more. Renee too, was crying much harder than she had been and she looked away from me for the first time in quite a while to wipe her eyes dry._

"_Bella, I want us to be able to get back what we lost," my mother said after a few minutes where the only noise in the apartment was the two of us sniffling quietly into a couple of tissues. "But...I don't know how we're going to get there and I don't know how long it's going to take. There's been so much damage Bella," she said. "Probably on both our parts." I shook my head to argue with her about her role in the whole mess, but she put up a hand to stop me from speaking._

"_I know you're going to try and absolve me of my part in the years we've spent estranged from each other, but don't. If you weren't feeling so guilty I think you'd recognise the fact that I haven't dealt with everything in the best way – in the way that I should have." My Mom shook her head and there was an expression on her face that I recognised immediately; shame. "I was so hurt by you and by the idea that not only did you not need me in your life anymore, but you didn't even want me there. I was hurt and I just...I closed you off instead of talking to you like I should have."_

"_I may not have failed you as a mother when I was trying to instil values in you, but I sure as hell failed you as one these past few years." Renee stopped and inhaled slowly, deeply, trying to find a way to continue instead of letting the emotions overwhelm her. I could empathise. "I want so desperately to find our way back Bella, but I don't even know if it's possible."_

_I nodded again for the umpteenth time during the conversation. I didn't have any words to say and even if I did, I would never get them out of my mouth without sobbing uncontrollably first. I was distraught at the idea of never really having my Mom back even though we both wanted to regain the relationship that had been severed so thoughtlessly years before. It was a relief that she even wanted to try and get back what we had, but the possibility of not being able to was enough to make me feel physically sick. I hadn't expected an easy ride. I didn't think that we'd shed a few tears, share a few home truths and everything would be fine, but I hadn't really understood the emotional battlefield that we were going to cross. Now that I did; I just hoped to god that we'd both cross it together and stronger than when we'd started._

*

I shook myself out of the rather depressing thoughts swarming around my mind because Renee and I had certainly come a long way since that first conversation and though things were still a little tentative and not nearly like what they used to be between us, being able to invite a friend of mine to dinner with her was definitely a positive development. I couldn't stop the small smile tugging at my lips and before I could second guess myself (for the _tenth _time since getting here), my knuckles finally made contact with the wooden structure and a noise reverberated down the relatively quiet hallway.

"Come in," Edward's familiar voice invited from what sounded to be quite far away.

I opened the door to find that Edward wasn't anywhere that I could readily see. "Edward?" I asked, walking further into the apartment and peering into the kitchen, which was empty.

"Bella?" Edward's voice seemed to be coming from behind his bedroom door.

I answered in the affirmative and wondered what he was doing behind that closed door. My imagination quickly went to scenes where clothes were either being put on or taken off – either way there was plenty of gratuitous Edward nudity flashing through my mind. I shook my head and dragged my inner self out of the gutter that I had sunk into. I _really_ needed to get a handle on this whole Edward situation before I said or did something embarrassing. Well, before I did something embarrassing that _other people_ would be witness to anyway. There had been enough humiliation going around yesterday.

Sue had insisted that we do the scene all the way through from the beginning _twice_ before she finally let us go for the evening and the car ride back to the apartment had been one of the most awkward moments of my life. Edward and I didn't share very many moments where we couldn't look at each other, let alone start a conversation, but yesterday had definitely been one long moment like that. Whenever I looked in Edward's direction, all I could see was the way he lay above me, looking at me like I held his world in my hands; like I had all the answers to questions he hadn't even asked in my eyes. Whenever we would try and say something, all I could hear was the roughness in his tone and yet the gentleness of his words. It was driving me fucking insane and tonight, not only did I want Edward and my Mom to get to know each other, but I needed to spend time with the Edward that was my _friend_ rather than the Edward who was playing the love of my life.

"I'll be out in a second," he informed me, pulling me out of my thoughts. "Just make yourself comfortable."

I chuckled at that. "As if I normally don't?" I was already walking towards his fridge to get myself some juice or something.

I poured a glass and drank slowly, thinking about this whole _thing_ I had for Edward. The thing was, even though I knew that there was _something_ between us beyond friendship and beyond the film, but I couldn't tell just how real or strong that something was because it was mixed up with Kristen's feelings about Robert. It wasn't necessarily that I couldn't separate what my own emotions were from what hers were supposed to be, but I was definitely seeing certain things differently. They always say that if only we walked a mile in someone else's shoes we would have a different view of the world and I was walking more than a mile in Kristen's designer pumps. I sighed heavily; it was like I was suffering from a damn split personality or something.

I heard the door open and saw Edward come out, grey T-shirt clinging tightly to his obviously still wet body and running a towel through his hair. I swallowed and closed my eyes. I seem to be getting put into more and more situations which made me realise that Edward Cullen was an extremely attractive man – and that was a slight understatement. He spotted me, stopped towelling his hair off and smiled warmly.

"Hey, sorry, I just got out of the shower."

"No problem," I replied, taking the last sip of the orange juice I had been musing over. It _really_ wasn't a problem, though now I that I knew he had been in the shower only minutes before I came in, my inner voice chastised me for taking so damn long to actually knock on the door. I wanted to roll my eyes at myself; it wasn't like he was going to invite me to take a shower with him even if I did get there in the same time period he was washing himself. It wasn't like I would have accepted even if he did offer.

"So what's up?" he asked, sitting down opposite from where I was still standing, trying to tone down my thoughts so that they would be more appropriate for _'friends'_.

"I just wondered if you had plans for dinner tonight?"

He shook his head.

"Now don't feel like you _have_ to because you've rejected me the past couple of times I've asked this question and _crushed_ me, but I don't suppose you'd have dinner with my Mom and me tonight?"

"Crush you?" Edward said sceptically. "Way to pull the emotional blackmail trick."

I laughed. "Seriously though, the amount of times you've said no to me would give other girls a complex."

"I just don't want to intrude," he repeated for the thousandth time, I was sure. "I know that you and your Mom have a lot of...things you need to deal with and talk about and I don't want to take away from that." I opened my mouth to reassure him that he wouldn't, but Edward just kept talking. "I know how much her being here means to you Bella."

And just like that I got it.

*

My mother had never especially liked Jake. I had always attributed it to what he'd done to her shoes, but now that I thought about it maybe it was more than that. Jake had come into my life at around about the same time that my mother had sort of taken a back seat; it couldn't have been a coincidence that she never took to him. Even my father, who had quizzed Jacob for a good three weeks before he agreed to him taking me out to a dinner and a movie eventually warmed up to him. Sam, who had tried to break Jake's hand on their first meeting, became pretty good friends with him about six months into our relationship. My mother however, barely gave Jacob the time of day.

Whatever her problem was with Jake apparently did not exist with Edward; my mother _loved _him. She had been a little surprised and probably extremely curious when I showed up back in my apartment with Edward in tow, but as soon as he greeted her with a disarming grin, she was won over – bowled over was probably the more accurate term for it. It was hard to see the Edward who had been anxious about the possibility of annoying my mother with his presence behind the charming demeanour of the man who was now sitting opposite of me telling my Mom stories about his time in Europe. I had heard a few of them before, but there were some tales that he had neglected to mention and in sharing his adventures with us, Edward also got my Mom to open up about her time in Italy; a time that I hadn't known anything about.

"You went to Italy?" I asked, incredulous. "When?"

My mother looked from Edward and to me, her eyebrows knitting in confusion. "Have I never told you about the time I went on an exchange programme?" she questioned.

I shook my head. No, she hadn't. "I could have sworn I've told this story before..."she trailed off as a look of realisation settled in her eyes. "Oh, yeah. I told your brother."

The way that she said that made me quite certain that she was alluding to a time in the not so distant past – like last week perhaps – when the only child she was really sharing anecdotes about her life with was Sam. We looked at each other for a beat, not really knowing what to say to get rid of the tension that had descended upon the table with that rather innocent slip. It just reminded me that however far my Mom and I had come in the last few days, we still had such a long way to go; you couldn't make up three years in four days, no matter how much both parties wanted it that way.

Luckily, Edward was there to move the conversation past the hole that Renee and I had made for ourselves by asking her to continue with her story. I caught his eye and shot him a small smile in thanks; he replied with an easy grin.

"So, originally I had signed up with the dream of finally being able to go to Rome or Milan or somewhere equally as fabulous. I had these visions of me in some very elegant get up, walking down streets with buildings thousands of years old all around me, turning the heads of Italian men with my all-American charm."

I laughed along with her and Edward when she told us of how she imagined her time abroad would be; it sounded very much like a black and white movie from the 1930's. I wondered if that was where Renee had gotten her ideas from; I knew that she loved old movies and it would follow that as a 16 year-old, she would dream of her life being the way her heroines lived it on the silver screen.

"So was it everything you dreamed it would be?" Edward questioned, giving my mother the sort of inquisitive audience she was obviously looking for when retelling this story. I wondered briefly what on earth had led her to recount her tale to my brother.

Renee shook her head, laughing at the memory. "Not quite. Instead of the Italian city glamour that I'd been dreaming about and envisioning, I was sent to a small village somewhere in northern Italy where people barely spoke English and where shopping meant walking two miles to the nearest shop to get the food essentials." She sighed happily at the distant memory; obviously she hadn't been too disappointed in the end if she could look back on the whole thing with humour and wistfulness in her tone that suggested she had some fond recollections.

"Did you stay for the entire duration then?" Edward questioned, far more engaged in the tale than I seemed to be; I was rather content in sitting back and observing the conversation and interaction between them. It was so strange for me to be having dinner with my Mom and a friend of mine; I couldn't remember the last time a scenario like this had happened. Every time Jake came to dinner with my family, the tension around the table was even more palpable than when it was just the four or the three of us. Right now, tension wasn't even an idea in anyone's head. It was...well, it was a very nice feeling.

My Mom nodded her head. "I didn't want to," she admitted. "At first all I could think of was how I could convince my parents to let me come back early, but once I got into the spirit of things, I absolutely _loved_ it. It taught me an awful lot about myself, let me tell you."

Edward voiced his agreement and the rest of the night progressed in pretty much the same way; with the two of them exchanging stories about several things they seemed to have in common whilst I just sat back and soaked up the companionable atmosphere. It was a little strange to see Edward and my Mom getting along so well and I didn't know whether it was because they were both making an extra effort or because they just agreed on a lot of things. The one thing I was very glad that they didn't talk about was childhood stories of me, though I think that may have been intentional on my Mom's part; neither of us were too eager to bring up our shared history it seemed, though there hadn't been a discussion to explicitly say so. Edward and I caught each other's glances a few times from across the table and when he smiled at me, there was something behind his green eyes that made me gulp and look down quickly.

As we neared the end of dinner, Edward excused himself to go to the bathroom and Renee turned to me with a mischievous twinkle in her eye that I sometimes saw staring back at me from a mirror.

"So, Edward seems nice," she started, trying to hide a grin and failing miserably.

I thought I knew where she was going with this, but I didn't want to get into this discussion when Edward could come back at any moment and overhear us. "Yeah, he is," I agreed. "You two certainly seem to be getting on well Mom. Do I need to phone Dad to report on you tonight?"

Renee laughed. "Don't be ridiculous Bella," she admonished. "The boy's young enough to be my son. In fact he's probably the same age as your brother is he not?"

"He's a couple of years older actually," I corrected. "Besides, it's all the rage these days; older women luring younger men. You'd be a bona fide cougar."

My Mom threw her head back in mirth. "Even if I wasn't married and still in love with Charlie, I don't think I'm Edward's type." Renee looked at me steadily and I could feel my cheeks heat under her gaze. "I'd say I'd have to have brown eyes instead of grey and a darker shade of brown hair – longer hair too."

She was obviously referring to me, but before I could say anything, Edward returned to the table to inform us that he'd already taken care of the bill. It was a good job that he'd interrupted us because honestly, I didn't really know what to say. Could I confide in my mother about all my thoughts and feelings about Edward? Would she help me sort through the confusion? Really there was no one better to talk to than Renee now that we had some sort of mother-daughter relationship again. Still, there was a part of me that didn't want to tell anyone for fear that everything would become more real – and by definition, more complicated – when I did. I could admit to myself that something was happening between Edward and I, possibly something that I wasn't ready for, but it was completely different admitting it to someone else.

There was also the very large part of me that felt guilty as hell because technically, _technically_, I still had a boyfriend; a boyfriend that I still loved and a boyfriend that still loved me. Perhaps I had been too successful in thinking of myself as single when really, I wasn't. I wouldn't be single until either Jake or I really called quits on our relationship, not just announced a pause. What I really needed to do was talk to Jake, but I didn't know _what_ to tell him. Did I want to tell him that I wanted the break to last; that it should be a break-_up _instead?

And then what? Would I start dating Edward? Would I become the stereotypical Hollywood actress that broke up with her long-term boyfriend for her co-star when it probably wouldn't last beyond the time it took to wrap the film? There was a part of me that didn't really believe that anything with Edward would be short-term, but that part was small because really, I had no idea what was going on in Edward's head. He may be attracted to me, but I'm pretty sure he was attracted to the girl that I saw walking out of his apartment a few weeks ago too.

"Hey," Edward's voice broke me away from my increasingly neurotic thoughts. "Are you okay?"

I shook my head clear. "Yeah," I answered, smiling to put both he and my Mom at ease. "Sorry, I was just lost in thought. Are we all ready to go?"

Both my mother and Edward nodded, following me out of the restaurant and into a balmy night in New York City.

*

I had gotten the morning off work to take my mother to the airport and say goodbye. Sue hadn't been all too happy about it, but she admitted that she didn't really need me for the morning scenes since we had already gone over them earlier on during the rehearsal period. That and I think she was also feeling a little guilty about her absolutely unnecessary and very unprofessional 'talk' with me last week. As I sat in the taxi, I thought back to how strange it was to be taking my Mom to the airport right now, 5 days after she had shown up so unexpectedly at my door. After everything that had transpired between us this past week, it kind of felt like this was the only way that we could have progressed after me writing the letter, but when I woke up on Sunday, it was just about the last thing I expected.

*

_I woke up on Sunday morning wondering why my head felt like there was some tribal drum group living within its bony confines. Flashes of the previous day played under my closed eyelids and I was surprised at how many of the scenes had me bringing some alcoholic drink to my mouth. Well, I guess I know why I felt like hell then. Suddenly, another image flashed through my mind and I was sitting bolt upright on the bed, ignoring the fact that my head now felt like it was going to explode because of that movement._

_Beer. Wine. Rosalie. Me. Edward._

_Oh fuck._

_What the hell had I said to Rose? What the hell had I done? _

_The headache was quickly forgotten as I scrambled to get out of bed, get changed and...and do what exactly? What the hell was I going to say to Rosalie anyway? 'Hey, remember last night when I pretty much let you in on the fact that I may be falling for your best friend, well I was just thinking that you don't mention that to him?' Yeah right. It wasn't like Rose was even my friend. Her loyalties were to Edward alone and I was almost certain that she would want him to know that the pathetic teenager he was sharing screen time with for the movie was crushing on him. That wouldn't be awkward at all, once he knew. _

_But then again, I hadn't been the only one drinking that night. Rosalie had been disturbingly nice and candid herself, meaning that surely I wasn't the only one who had far too much to drink. Maybe she wouldn't remember anything; certainly not a two minute conversation we had near enough at the end of the night when we'd consumed enough alcohol for a small village to become drunk. Well, okay, maybe not a small village, but certainly a family of adults. If I went to talk to her, I could just be reminding her about something she hadn't really cared enough about to remember and I would be making it into a bigger thing than it was. Well, a bigger thing than maybe she thought it was; it was pretty fucking huge to me already._

_I collapsed back onto my bed, my headache now back in full force and apparently bringing help in case I decided to attempt to fight it off again. I opened the drawer to the right of the bed and took out a bottle of painkillers so that I could at least take the edge off enough to go back to sleep. Maybe if I slept all the way through until tomorrow, I couldn't do anything else stupid today._

_I woke up again four hours later according to my bedside clock, feeling much better on the headache front and a lot less panicked on the whole confessing my secrets to Rosalie front. Honestly, she probably would have just laughed it off as nothing even if she had remembered it this morning. After all, she had confessed herself, to finding Edward attractive as soon as she saw him. I felt a little bit of triumph at the fact that I had _finally_ gotten a confirmation as to what the nature of their relationship was and what it had always been. There was a greater victory in the fact that I managed to get it from Rosalie without having to ask her. I still didn't really understand why she and Edward had never even thought of being in a relationship, even when they were 17, travelling alone together with their hormones sky high. They must _really_ not see the other person as a sexual being at all. _

_Thinking about Edward and Rosalie made me wonder whether or not Edward was actually back from visiting his mother. I thought about messaging him, but decided against it, just in case he was still with her; I didn't want it to seem like all I did was sit around and think about him because it really wasn't. Well, this weekend may have been heavy on the thoughts of Edward, but that was mostly down to other people. It's not like I forced people to ask me about Edward; they just didn't seem to have anything else to talk to me about. I was forced out of my increasingly irritable thoughts by the sound of my cell ringing. Looking down at the screen, I didn't recognise the number and it certainly wasn't stored on my phone. Now normally I was not the sort of person who answered my phone to an unknown number; I hated random, intrusive sales calls and I hated even more the journalists who went to trouble to get my personal number only to ask me completely asinine questions. However, I hit the green button before I knew what I was doing and when I heard the voice on the other end of the line, I wanted to hit myself._

"_Hey Bella it's me Jess." I don't know how she didn't manage to hear the groan from my inner voice; it was rather loud._

"_Hey," I answered back in a voice that didn't exactly exude warmth. I may not have been as pissed with Jessica as I was with Jane, nor was I as angry with her as I had been yesterday, but I still didn't want to have a conversation with the girl._

"_Look, I just called to apologise about Friday night," she said in a rush. "I would have called to apologise yesterday, but Alice said I should probably give you time to cool off."_

_Alice was wise. I don't think I would have let manners keep me from hanging up the phone as soon as she said her name yesterday. Today, I had enough control to not even say anything after her apology._

_Jessica went on. "I know I was completely out of line and there was absolutely no excuse for my behaviour, but I just wanted you to know that I _am_ sorry."_

_I rolled my eyes and resisted the overwhelming urge to sigh because she would have definitely heard that and I didn't feel right being a bitch when she was being a grown up about the whole situation – finally. "I'm not going to say it's okay Jessica," I told her honestly. _

"_Of course," she agreed quickly. _

"_It wasn't exactly a fun night for me to be attacked by people I work with and people I owe absolutely no explanation about my life to." I wasn't going to be a bitch, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to tell her exactly what was on my mind. I had held back almost all of Friday night and it had ended with me completely blowing up, which wasn't the best thing. I wanted Jessica to see this from my point of view anyway so maybe she could carry the 'gossip' back to her friend Jane._

"_I know that," Jessica informed me, her voice lowering and filled with something very similar to shame. "Look Bella, I know what it's like for everyone to be talking shit about you and I'm really sorry if I contributed to any of that. I really am. I wish I could go back and tell myself to shut the fuck up, but I let my mouth get carried away with me."_

_I couldn't really say anything else after that; she had taken the words right out of my mouth and the only thing I could say was: "Let's just put it behind us Jess. We're both adults and it's not like there was too much damage done or anything."_

_She agreed, apologised again and then said her goodbye. I sat in bed, surprised as hell by the conversation for about ten minutes before I finally just shook my head clear and took my own advice to just move one from the whole thing. It was nice that Jessica apologised and it was a relief to know that when we got back to work on Monday morning, there would be no awkward tension between us. Jane...well that was another story. Maybe she was so drunk on Friday that she wouldn't remember offending me to such a great degree, but I certainly wasn't. Normally, I wasn't the type to hold a grudge, but I wasn't going to pretend to be okay with a woman who didn't respect me enough as a peer to mind her own business. _

_Taking a shower took much longer than I had anticipated, but that was probably because I stood under the water until it ran cold and I could no longer let it wash all the stress of the week away without my teeth chattering. It may have been rather hot on the streets of New York, but cold showers were not a fun experience at any time of year. I didn't have much to do today because I hadn't actually planned on anything. I had wanted to call Esme yesterday and see if she could meet up to talk some more, but I hadn't been in the right state of mind really. I would have to arrange to meet with her at some point in the week if she wasn't too busy planning her wedding. I couldn't believe how quickly it was coming up and I made a mental note to ask someone from wardrobe for a suitable dress that I could possibly borrow for the occasion. Then again if I was going to be in a room full of Kristen's relatives maybe I shouldn't actually dress like her. _

_I had been sitting reading a book that Edward had mentioned long ago that I would love when a knock pushed me out of the world that I had been observing quite happily. My first thought was that Edward was finally back from seeing his mother and I rushed to answer the door, slowing down just when I got to it and caught myself. What the hell was I? A teenager waiting for her damn prom date? _

"_Hey," I greeted, smile wide on my face as I swung the door opened wide._

_Holy crap._

_The smile on my face froze in place, I was sure. I could feel my eyes widen to about three times their normal size. Unless Edward had _drastically_ changed since Friday, this was not my friend. However, the person it _looked_ like it was (the person it actually was, of course), could not possibly be standing on my doorstep with bags in hand. Not unless I was still asleep._

"_Hello Bella," my mother greeted me._

_I blinked. She was still standing there, not smiling, but not looking angry either. It seemed as if she had expected this reaction from me because she just stood there patiently, looking at me steadily. _

"_Mom?" I asked stupidly. Of course it was her, but my mind couldn't actually comprehend what my eyes were seeing. My mother, who I hadn't heard from at all after I knew she'd received the letter, was standing in front of me, looking at me as if I should have somehow expected her to be there. I didn't. _

_My Dad hadn't mentioned her coming when I last spoke to him a couple of days ago. Sam hadn't mentioned her coming when I spoke to him yesterday. No one had mentioned that my still estranged mother would be standing on my doorstep on Sunday night. I didn't know what to do. My brain wasn't giving any instructions to the rest of my body for movement because it was too busy reeling from the shock of this development._

"_Can I come in?" she asked finally after what could have been hours of the two of us just standing there looking at each other in silence. _

_I shook my head. "Of course." I stepped aside. How could I have been so fucking stupid? Of course I should have invited her in straight away. Now she would think that I didn't want her there, which was very far from the truth. I just still couldn't believe that she was actually here. "I'm sorry. I just er....I mean, I didn't...um..."_

_Apparently not only couldn't I believe that my mother was standing in front of me in my temporary apartment, but I couldn't speak in complete sentences either. Didn't she raise an amazingly intelligent daughter? _

"_I know this is probably a surprise to you, me showing up like this," she started. Understatement much mother? "I just thought it was about time for us to talk." She was looking me right in the eyes when she said this and I was filled with a sense of this being a very crucial moment for our relationship. She was looking for agreement from me; confirmation of my being ready to finally start mending what I had so carelessly and unknowingly broken years before._

_I took a deep breath. "Yeah," I agreed. "It really is."_

*

I had been absolutely right in thinking that her presence in New York, however unexpected it may have been, was critical to where our relationship would go. I couldn't imagine getting to the place we were now through emails, phone calls or letters. There are things that are better expressed on paper, but there are emotions that people can only really find when they are interacting and that was what my mother's visit gave us both. It also allowed us to start from the beginning; to find out who we were to each other _now_ so that we could get back some of what we were to each other before. Renee had always been my Mom, even when the two of us barely said a sentence to each other without it resulting in an argument of some kind, but it was what that word meant to each of us that had changed. It was now in the process of changing again and I think we both hoped that it would be more like the original meaning.

I could only go so far with her into the airport without a ticket, so we decided to just say goodbye at the door and for me to go back with the taxi. My Mom only had one bag, which she easily lifted, refusing both mine and the driver's offer of help. We stood facing each other, just outside the entrance to the airport and smiled, comfortable in the knowledge that a gap had been bridged these past few days and although it wasn't complete, we were definitely moving in the right direction. I had been worried that Renee would fly back to LA and all the progress we had made would be completely undone, but dinner last night had reinforced that things really had changed between us; we really were mending.

"I'm going to miss you Bella," my Mom said, wrapping her arms around me and giving me only the second hug since she got here.

"I'm going to miss you too Mom," I confessed. "I wish I could go back with you, but-"

Renee let me go and shook her head. "You have responsibilities here Bella," she finished for me. "Besides, I don't think a certain leading actor friend of yours would be too happy with me if I took you away for the weekend."

She shot me with a mischievous and utterly suggestive grin, to which I just chose to roll my eyes. My mother had been repeatedly insinuating since last night that _something_ was going on with Edward and I. I hadn't wanted to deny it, so I just chose to completely ignore her comments on the matter; I was refusing to be baited by my own mother. Renee just laughed and hugged me again.

"Take care of yourself Bella and come visit your Dad and I as soon as you can," she said, giving me a final squeeze. "I love you kid."

I smiled. "I love you too Mom."

Yes it was cheesy and yes it was a moment that belonged in a Lifetime movie, but I was getting my mother back after years of not really having her and it finally seemed like at least one part of my life was coming back together.

*

**EPOV**

In all honesty, all I had wanted to do on Thursday night was go home, take a shower and go to bed. I hadn't been sleeping too well with the weight of what Bella and I had to do in rehearsals still weighing heavily on my mind. The repetition of the scene not once, but twice, so that we got through it without any more accidents had been absolute torture. I had to keep reminding myself that Bella and I were in a room full of people 'pretending'. We were pretending to be other people, pretending to be in love and pretending to be having sex. We were _not_ alone and we most definitely were _not_ ourselves. Still, I wasn't going to lie and say that I didn't thoroughly enjoy being someone else in that moment. I had kissed Bella several times before during scenes, but being in bed with her, having so much of my body be in contact with hers – clothed, of course – was a completely different experience and one that I enjoyed far, far too much.

Friends of mine who weren't in the business liked to joke a lot about actors getting paid to live out their fantasies, both innocent and sexual. They teased me about being able to kiss other women and pretend to have sex with other women, without getting any kind of grief from my significant other at the time because it was all part of the job. They were jealous and they absolutely loved bringing it up every time we got together and had enough alcohol in us to loosen some tongues. I hadn't fully understood just how amazing my job was until Wednesday afternoon when I got to look at Bella in exactly the way that I wanted to without having to feel at all guilty or conflicted about it because it _was_ a part of my job. Of course, after we got back, I felt _extremely_ guilty about it because I felt as if I wasn't being completely honest with her any more.

The simple truth of the matter was that I wanted to be more than friends with Isabella Swan and I had wanted it for a long, long time. The complex truth of the matter was that I didn't really know if Bella would be open to that idea considering she was still in some kind of a relationship with a guy she'd been with for years. Objectively, I could allow myself to admit that I thought Bella was attracted to me, but being physically attracted to someone and wanting to do something about it was completely different. Attraction is an unstoppable biological process; we see people that fit our version of attractive and we find ourselves drawn to them. Doing something about it was a conscious choice and I didn't know if Bella wanted me to be anything other than a good friend and co-star.

I wanted to spend Thursday night relaxing, resting and thinking. I wanted to come up with some sort of plan of action on the whole Bella front because I could feel it all coming to a head. I wasn't the type of guy who played games; I was usually honest and up front with women, but this whole thing with Bella was confusing the hell out of me. Jasper and Rosalie had invited me to see a play with them, but I refused, using being tired because of work as an excuse. They tried to persuade me to change my mind, but I held firm and I would have spent the entire night exactly as I had planned had Bella not walked into my apartment and invited me out to dinner with her and her Mom for the third time that week.

Truthfully, I actually did want to go. I had wanted to go the other times she'd asked me too, but I had refused because I didn't want to intrude on Bella's time with her mother because I knew just how important this was to her; to them both. I told Bella as much again, but she insisted that my presence wouldn't take anything away from her spending time with her mother; it would only add to it. Well, what the hell was someone supposed to say to that? I was being ushered to Bella's apartment before I could even stop nodding my agreement to go.

Ever since I had found out about Bella and her mother, I had been extremely curious about her. I wanted to know what kind of woman had raised the amazing creature that was Isabella Swan. I was a little nervous about the evening, if truth be told, because I wanted this woman to like me; I felt as if it were important somehow. I had met only a handful of parents in my time: Rosalie's hated me (obviously), Claire's adored me (after her Dad made it clear that he wouldn't hesitate to hunt me down like a dog if I ever treated his daughter with anything other than respect) and my other ex-girlfriend's parents had liked me well enough. I tried to tell myself that the only reason I wanted Renee to like me was so that this evening, which Bella seemed really keen to see happening, wouldn't be ruined. Of course, in the back of my mind, I also knew that if I ever wanted anything to happen with Bella, having her mother hate me from the start wouldn't be the way to go about things.

Renee was everything I expected her to be; she was funny, intelligent, adventurous and captivating. She had lived a very interesting life prior to becoming a mother of two and she had a kind of vitality about her that told everyone she still loved the life she was living now. I could see where Bella got a lot of her strength of character from because her mother exuded strength and conviction. Bella also had the same shape of eyes as Renee, though hers were a much richer, warmer brown colour that reminded me of all good things in life. They had similar mannerisms, though I didn't think either were aware of the fact that they both tapped their left hand when they were impatiently waiting for something. All in all, it was not only a very entertaining and informative evening, but also a rather successful one. I was very confident in the fact that Renee Swan liked me.

I was in a rather victorious state of mind as I walked into the apartment and was immediately greeted with the sounds of Jasper and Rosalie talking in the lounge area. I couldn't tell what was being said, but Rose was laughing uproariously, so whatever it was, the conversation couldn't have been too serious. I was glad; there had been far too many serious conversations between the 3 of us lately.

"Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in," Rosalie said, a little breathlessly when she noticed me walking towards them. "Where have you been Ed? I thought you were too tired to go out."

I shrugged. "I snapped out of it I guess. I went out for dinner."

"You could have called us," Jasper piped up. "We'd have met you for dinner."

I sat down by Rosalie's feet. "I actually went to dinner with Bella and her mother." There was no use in trying to hide the fact that I was with Bella tonight because Rosalie would have found out and it would have looked even more suspect if I was trying to cover up what was a perfectly innocent dinner.

"Ha!" Rose cried. "I knew it. Pay up loser."

I looked between them, confused and then a little offended that they had bet on where I'd be tonight when they didn't find me at home asleep on the couch. "How old are the two of you?" I asked, not bothering to hide my irritation.

"Old enough to be able to enjoy the joys of gambling," Rosalie answered, pocketing the twenty that Jasper had handed over. "I can't believe you thought he was with Carlisle," she said to Jasper.

The blond man shrugged. "I was giving him the benefit of the doubt," he defended. "It's not like he spends all his waking hours with Bella; it wasn't a foregone conclusion."

Rosalie snorted. "It totally was. The only way Edward could be dragged out of the apartment tonight when he looks like he needs about a day's worth of sleep, was if Bella asked him."

"You both know that I'm still in the room right?" I asked, a little louder than normal because they seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that I could actually hear their conversation; oblivious or uncaring. Probably both.

They both turned their heads toward me and shrugged. "We have no problem talking about you in front of you Edward," Jasper teased. "Besides, you just lost me 20 bucks."

"You shouldn't have been betting about me!" I protested.

"You shouldn't have been so naive Jazz," Rose said over me. "Edward and Bella...well, it's kind of a done deal."

I don't think Jasper's surprise at her words could match mine. "What?!" we both asked.

Rosalie shook her head and rolled her eyes, as if we were both asking her a question that a 5 year-old would know the answer to. "Oh please," she scoffed, flicking her long blond hair over her shoulders. "The two of you are admittedly attracted to each other, you get on like a house on fire, Carlisle and Esme like her, she invited you to dinner with her mother, she's no longer got a boyfriend and you're going to be spending the next two and a half months pretending like you're in love." She was ticking these things off on her fingers as she said them and when she reached the final one, she leaned back and smiled. "That my friend is what I call a done deal."

I was pretty sure my mouth had dropped open in surprise as Jasper let out a low whistle at my other side. "Wow, when you put it like that..." he trailed off.

"When you put it like that, you still sound like you're trying to become a writer for a gossip rag," I argued. "I thought you of all people would know that men and women can just be friends Rose."

Rosalie shook her head. "Oh no, don't even try to pretend like you and Bella are just like me and you Edward," she protested. "The mere thought of that makes me want to vomit a little bit. I don't know why you can't just come out and say that you like her. You have to make everything into a big, complicated mess when really it's quite simple. Boy meets girl; boy likes girl; girl likes boy; both get it the fuck on. The end."

Jasper laughed. "You truly have a way with words Rosalie."

Rose just bowed her head in his direction and smiled whilst I sat there wondering if she was right; was I making this whole thing with Bella more complicated than it needed to be? I shook my head. No, it _was_ complicated; it wasn't my imagination that Bella still technically had a boyfriend. I didn't make up the fact that she was only 19 and we were in a movie together that may or may not have coloured the way we saw each other. I didn't embellish the details of her complicated relationship with her mother. Rosalie only saw it as simple because she wasn't aware of all the details and she didn't really know Bella. An alcohol-fuelled conversation with her one night didn't somehow give her insight into the mind of a girl that she'd never really spoken to before that period.

"She still has a boyfriend," I told her, giving the only thing that I could without betraying Bella's confidence.

Rosalie snorted. "I'm not getting into a whole 'Friends' style debate with you about whether being 'on a break' means that they're together, or not Edward. Look all you need to know is that the girl likes you and I don't mean as just a friend. Now I know you like her so what the hell is the deal?"

Jasper nodded along with her. "Dude, I have to agree with Rosalie on this one. You've never had a problem going after a girl before."

I sighed. Betrayed by my two closest friends. "Et tu Jasper?"

He shrugged. "Look, the reason that Alice isn't overly keen on you Edward is that she's very good friends with Bella's ex-boyfriend and she sees you as a threat. If Bella really only thought of you in a platonic manner, she wouldn't see you as a threat would she?"

Jasper had a knack for just laying everything out on the line; well everything that didn't allude to himself anyway. I shook my head, rolled my eyes and finally gave the fuck up. It was getting me nowhere, this whole avoidance and denial dance I was doing. I was just getting more and more confused by the minute and honestly, I agreed with Rosalie; I did have a talent for making something out of nothing.

"I honestly don't know what the fuck I'm doing," I admitted, defeat colouring every single word that came out of my mouth. I didn't have to look at Rose to know that she had an excited gleam in her sky blue eyes. Jasper's expression didn't change, but I also knew that he was interested in hearing what I had to say. Unfortunately for the both of them that one sentence pretty much summed up everything that had been going through my mind.

"That's it?" Rosalie asked impatiently. "That's all you have to say? You don't know what you're doing?"

I nodded. I didn't have the slightest idea what I was doing with Bella. I felt like I was a teenager with his first crush.

"Why don't you just tell her?" Jasper spoke out.

"What?"

"Just tell her that you're interested." Jasper was speaking like it was the easiest and simplest thing in the world for me to tell Bella that I was interested in becoming more than her friend and her co-star. I was interested in finding out if this connection and this relationship that we had built could be the start of something neither of us had expected. I was _very_ interested, but I had no idea if she was and if she wasn't, there was going to be a whole lot of awkwardness on set thereafter.

"And what she's going to be interested too and we can ride off into the sunset together?" I asked, with a roll of my eyes. "My life's not some romantic comedy storyline Jasper, no matter how much you and Rosalie think otherwise."

"So what are you going to do then?" Rosalie asked. They were fucking tag-teaming me. Brilliant. Just a few days ago Rosalie couldn't be in the same room as Jasper without yelling at him or making snide comments but now they were agreeing on everything? Fucking brilliant.

"Nothing," I answered firmly. "I'm just going to be her friend and see where that leads us. I'm not going to put her on the spot like you want me to."

Rosalie groaned in utter frustration. "You're being a god damn pussy Edward. You keep making up excuses to not tell her or not pursue her or whatever else and all you really need to do is at least let her know that it's something more for you and then let nature take its course. You think far too fucking much for an actor, you know that don't you?"

I had to laugh at the last part of her speech even though she'd pretty much insulted me throughout. I couldn't deny that I had been over-analysing the whole Bella situation or that I tended to over-analyse _every_ situation, but I had a feeling that there was a lot more at stake this time than the film. Bella had come to be quite important to me over the course of the past couple of months. I had missed spending time with her this week when she'd been busy with her Mom and I didn't want to potentially fuck all of that up because I couldn't separate life from art anymore – didn't really want to, in fact. Rosalie and Jasper were both right; there had only ever really been two simple solutions to this whole thing: I had to stay away from Bella or I had to just embrace everything and just go with it. I had been trying to straddle the two options and bring them together practically since meeting her, but I couldn't do it anymore and I shouldn't be doing it anymore. It was making everything complicated and if I wanted to be able to separate work from real life, I needed to start working out the confusion in my own life.

So, okay. Obviously I couldn't stay away from Bella and I couldn't ignore the fact that I unrelentingly and almost illogically drawn to her. The second option was available to me and it was by far the most inviting if I was going to be completely honest with myself. I needed to try and portray to Bella that I was definitely open to more with her if she should want it without pushing her. I didn't want to be another problem in her life; I wanted to be the person who helped her cope with them; who helped her face them.

There was just one thing that my conversation with Rosalie and Jasper didn't give me any answers to at all; how the fuck was I supposed to make her aware that I wanted something other than friendly dinners without actually telling her?

*

I spent Friday morning wondering what it was going to be like with Bella now that I had come up with half a plan about what to do with whatever it was with us. I wondered whether I'd act normally around her or if she would be able to tell that something had changed due to my extreme strangeness around her. I still couldn't figure out a way to let her know that I actually wanted to date her other than to actually ask her out and make sure she knew it was a date. I felt like I should have talked to her about the whole thing. One of the best things about my relationship with Bella was the fact that I found it so easy to talk to her, but I couldn't even begin to imagine how to bring this very sensitive subject up. I was rather distracted all of Friday morning, which didn't quite show up as much in my work as it would have done had we been rehearsing completely new scenes.

I was so nervous about how I'd act around Bella now that I forgot to be anxious about this afternoon. The scene was going to be the last that the two of the leads shared together in the story's timeline. It was the goodbye scene; the last time that either one of them got to show the person they loved that they did indeed love them with everything they had. It was an incredibly intense scene and the emotions that had to be portrayed in it were sometimes on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. I had been the most nervous about this scene beyond any of the others, even if they hadn't been having sex in it. It was the scene that really captured the desperation they felt at being forced apart by circumstances; it was the scene that told you the rest of the story was not going to be a happy one; for anyone involved. There was a definite step up in the darkness of the tale from this moment on. If it went wrong, everything else after would be wrong and everything else before would be tinged with disappointment that the build was better than the climax.

I would have probably been a jittery, nervous wreck about to be offered Valium by someone else from the cast, had I not been completely – well almost completely – distracted by what it was going to be like with Bella and I when she got back this afternoon. There had been a couple of moments last night when there was something different in the way she looked at me, or the way she smiled at me, but that could have just been my imagination or a result of my looking a little differently at her. I needed to get a fucking grip. I was a grown man who'd had relationships before and I was being reduced to a nervous, unsure wreck by a girl nearly five years my junior.

I'd never had this problem with anyone before. I wasn't exactly cock-sure, but I wasn't typically nervous around women unless they had the sort of power that could get me black-listed from what I loved to do. The anxiety was professionally related, not personally; never personally until now, with Bella. A part of me wondered if it was because I held her in such esteem professionally and maybe that was a factor, but there was also some deep recess of my mind that told me it was something more than that. What that 'something more' was exactly wasn't really clear; apparently that voice in the deep recesses could only say the one thing – not an overly helpful inner voice.

"You look in a thoughtful mood," a very familiar voice commented. I snapped my head up immediately and faced the teasing smile of the very woman I had been thinking about, and not just for the past few hours either.

"Hey," I greeted. "I didn't expect you to be back until after lunch."

Bella shrugged and came to sit next to the bench that I had been occupying. "Obviously I couldn't wait to get back on set to see you."

I forced a chuckle out of my mouth whilst my mind was arguing with itself about whether or not there was an ounce of sincerity in her declaration at all. Obviously she'd said it in a teasing manner, but she didn't have to say it at all and the fact that she did must have meant something right? Yeah, like I was turning into a fucking woman. No man should be sitting next to a girl he likes going over every little thing she said to him. I was thankful that no one else was privy to my thoughts because even _I_ wanted to laugh at myself right now.

"Seriously though," Bella continued, obviously unaware of the mocking I was doing of myself. "You had anything to eat yet?" I shook my head; I wasn't really hungry.

"Come on then," she encouraged, standing up and looking down at me for once. "It'll even be my treat because _someone_ wouldn't let me pay for mine and my mother's food last night."

"The counter was on my way back from the restrooms," I insisted, standing up.

Bella scoffed and started walking towards the exit of the lot. "Yeah, if you walked all the way around to the other side of the restaurant before coming back to the table first."

Even though she had been ahead of me, it only took 2 long strides before I was walking beside her instead of following her. "What can I say? I like to take the scenic route."

Bella shoved me playfully with her shoulder, which wouldn't have caused me to deviate from the straight path I was walking at all had she not caught me by surprise and used her entire body weight. "Hey!" I protested. "You know causing someone serious injury is not the best way to thank them for dinner."

"Hence why I'll be paying for lunch," Bella grinned. She looked at me for a beat and then her expression turned serious and she stopped walking to stand in front of me. Bella inhaled deeply and ran a hand through her hair, biting her lip as if she was nervous about whatever it was she was going to say to me; a far cry from the teasing tone of our conversation so far.

"Seriously though Edward, I do honestly want to say thanks," she said finally, her eyes dropping to study the cement of the sidewalk beneath us.

"What for?" I asked, genuinely puzzled about why she would be this serious about thanking me for a relatively inexpensive dinner.

Bella lifted her head to look up at me and the expression in her eyes was something I couldn't name, but something that literally stopped my mind from being able to process any kind of thought other than I was in so much trouble when it came to this girl.

"For just knowing," she said. "If it wasn't for a conversation we had a couple of weeks ago, my Mom wouldn't have been here this past week and last night...just...you always seem to know what I need and you always seem to be there for me."

To say I was shocked would have been putting it mildly; I was astounded. I didn't quite know what to say. I thought she was giving me far too much credit for my part in her mother's reappearance back in her life. I couldn't really think of a single thing I said in our conversation that would have affected Bella's relationship with her mother so dramatically. The reply working its way to my mouth was the standard '_that's what friends are for'_ line that everyone gives when they aren't really comfortable in taking credit for something. However, I felt as if my describing our relationship as 'friendship' again for the umpteenth time was now kind of deceiving and I didn't want to keep putting myself under that heading with Bella.

So I said the only thing I could that was 100% truthful. "Always Bella," I said, smiling down and taking her hand to give it a small squeeze. "Always."

* * *

A/N: Thank you to everyone who is reading this story (new comers and seasoned readers alike) and an extra thank you to those who leave reviews. This won't be a long author's note because I think the chapter is pretty self-explanatory. Hope you enjoyed it!


	26. Chapter 26 A Public Outing

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight and real people own themselves.**

**Chapter 26 EPOV**

I woke up on Saturday night to my cell ringing obnoxiously from the floor beside the couch that was still acting as my bed. As much as I wanted to do everything I could to keep Rosalie safe from whatever it was that Jasper thought he was protecting us all from, I couldn't help but wish that she'd give me my bed back. I fumbled around blindly, refusing to open my eyes because I was pretty sure I hadn't actually been asleep for longer than an hour; it had been a pretty late night/early morning.

"Hello?" I grumbled out, my voice rough.

"Edward have you seen the cover of _'Famous'_ this morning?" It was Jasper.

I yawned, eyes still closed and not really understanding what was going on. "Jazz I haven't even seen the light this morning. Until you called I was fast asleep."

"Well wake up and go down to the nearest paper shop," my impatient friend instructed.

"What?" I asked, irritated that he'd wake me up when obviously no one was dying. "You called me at the crack of dawn to tell me to go out and buy some rag?"

I could picture Jasper rolling his eyes at my tone even though he was on the end of a phone line and there was absolutely no change in his voice as he replied. "Firstly, it's 9 o'clock in the morning, _not_ the crack of dawn and secondly you'll understand the reason I'm telling you to buy this magazine when you see it."

I yawned again. "Ugh. I'll go out and buy it when I've had some more sleep and talk to you then. Bye." I hung up before he could say anything else, feeling a little bad at how rude I'd just been to Jasper. Then again, he knew that I wasn't the best person in the mornings and 9 o'clock may as well have been the crack of dawn if you get in at 4 in the morning.

I was just drifting off back to a land of peaceful, if somewhat lumpy, slumber when a rather loud knock jolted me awake again. I groaned. Why the hell was the world conspiring to ensure that I didn't get _any_ sleep at all today?

"Go away!" I shout to whoever was at the door. I literally didn't care if it was the president on the other side; I wouldn't be getting up to answer it.

"Edward, it's me, Bella. Let me in."

I open my eyes and grudgingly roll off the couch. Yeah, okay, so there was perhaps one person that I would answer the door to no matter how tired and miserable I was feeling. Besides, if she was up and about at this time then at least I wouldn't be suffering alone. I knew from experience that Bella didn't like having less than an appropriate amount of sleep and I didn't think that 5 hours qualified as appropriate – especially since it was the weekend and we were supposed to be catching up on missed hours. If I wasn't so tired maybe I would have given more thought to why she would be calling at my door this morning anyway rather than still being in bed. However, my brain was working slower than my feet and it took me until I actually threw the door open to a rather frantic looking Bella to wonder what she was doing here.

"Hey what's wrong?" The anxiety I felt as a response to her expression of panic was enough to clear away the cloud of sleep that had been hanging inside my brain and covering my mental faculties.

Bella stepped inside and walked into the lounge where I had been sleeping – or at least trying to – only moments before. She waited until I had closed the door and followed her in before she spoke.

"Have you seen _'Famous'_ this morning?"

Deja-vu. What the hell was it with everyone and that magazine this morning?

I shook my head in the negative. "Should I have?"

Instead of answering vocally, Bella thrust a rolled up glossy into my hands. I opened it up, looking at her curiously whilst doing so, but when it was finally fully opened, I looked down and almost choked on my own saliva. I was looking down at picture of Bella and I at a bar somewhere in Brooklyn underneath a headline that read: **'Co-stars Cosy Up Together!'**

What the fuck?

I looked up at Bella who had the same puzzled and aghast expression that I was sure I had on, but there was also the same panic in her eyes that looked up at me from the door. I looked back down at the grainy picture that apparently captured an 'intimate' dinner between the two of us. I couldn't be sure, but it appeared to be the night we had dinner with Carlisle and Esme, but neither one seemed to be in the shot. It was absolutely surreal to see a picture of us that seemed to insinuate that we were having a private, romantic dinner alone because if I didn't know any better, I would have believed it.

"Is this some sort of joke?" I asked what seemed like hours later, but was probably less than a minute.

"I wish," Bella choked out. "You think the picture's bad, you should read the article inside."

I flipped to page 4, where the magazine claimed to have 'inside information' into our 'sizzling romance'. The first thing I noticed was that there were other pictures of the two of us spread across a double page and they weren't just of last night. There was a picture of us from a couple of weeks ago when Bella had kissed me on the cheek outside the motel that she had been resting in. There was also a picture of the two of us on the street from yesterday lunch time when she'd thanked me for whatever role I had in bringing her mother back to her life. My mind was being blown to smithereens and I was aware of my mouth dropping open every couple of seconds as I saw another picture that I was never aware had been taken.

The article itself was out of this world unbelievable.

'_Being cast to play star-crossed lovers in the much talked about biopic of tragic musician Robert Pattinson seems to have spilled over into real life for the two romantic leads. Isabella Swan, 19, and Edward Cullen, 23, have been spotted all over New York together, from restaurants, to bars, to motel rooms and even outside of each other's apartments. _

"_Oh yeah, you often see him coming out of her apartment first thing in the morning after he's spent the night," a tenant of the same apartment complex tells 'Famous'. "I swear he spends more nights at hers than he does his own apartment."_

_This closeness must come as a surprise to Swan's boyfriend of almost 4 years, Jacob Black, 21. Black, a fellow actor, is currently on location in Texas shooting for the new Mc Carty film released late next year and seems to have no idea of what is going on in the Big Apple. Meanwhile, Cullen, who is getting his first major break by being cast as the enigmatic rock star in this film, seems to have more than breaking into the Hollywood scene in mind with this role. In fact, sources on set have revealed that the handsome, multi-talented actor has been enamoured with his teenage co-star since the moment they met and nowadays seems to be constantly at her side._

"_They spend almost all their time together between and after takes," our on-set source divulges. "They come in together in the morning, they have lunch together and they leave together. In fact, they barely talk to anyone else in the cast and it's starting to rub people up the wrong way."_

_Hmmm...a love triangle, a divided cast and a torrid love affair all set against the backdrop of New York city. Maybe they should be getting _this_ action on camera instead. Or will there be _more_ once the film starts rolling? Well one thing's for sure we can't _wait_ to see what more these two hot, young things have in store for us!'_

I had absolutely no words that could correctly describe the level of astonishment and disgust I felt in that very moment. I vaguely wondered whether I was being filmed on some new version of 'Punk'd', but that thought was a weak one because nothing else could penetrate my mind beyond the disbelief and horror that had settled in. I dropped my hands, the magazine still clutched tightly in them, and looked at Bella for a sign that this was some sick fucking joke. There was none; it was absolutely real.

"What the hell?" I asked, though I knew she wouldn't have any more answers than I did.

"I know!" she exclaimed. "When the fuck did people take those pictures?"

"Who the hell are these so-called 'inside sources'?" I questioned back.

Bella and I couldn't stop asking questions even though neither of us knew any more about the situation than the other. Still, we weren't really expecting answers; we were just finding a way to vent the confusion and outrage that the magazine article had inflicted upon us. The worst thing about the entire article was that none of the quotes actually gave false information, but they were presented within a context that gave an entirely false impression of mine and Bella's relationship. The article had made it sound like I'd pursued Bella and tempted her to cheat on her unsuspecting, hardworking long-term boyfriend. I seemed like an absolute dick and Bella didn't come off any better, which was probably the thing that angered me the most – apart from the fact that someone seemed to be stalking us.

"How did you find out about this?" I asked after we'd spent a few more minutes staring from each other down to the magazine, still in complete disbelief.

"Alice was pounding on my door at 8 o'clock this morning and then shoved the magazine in my face before I could ever rub the sleep out of my eyes."

Great. I wondered if I had Jasper to thank for his girlfriend not showing up on my doorstep to mark my other cheek with her handprint this morning. If that was indeed the case, maybe we were one favour closer to being nearly even and I felt slightly worse about the fact that I had been so rude on the phone this morning. Still, apart from not having a stinging face, I wasn't that happy with Alice accosting Bella about the magazine situation first thing this morning. I remembered how upset Bella had been the last time Alice had insinuated that she'd be the type of person to cheat on her boyfriend; I hated to think what the conversation this morning would have been like.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, pulling her down with me to sit on my couch/bed. "What did Alice have to say about the whole thing?"

Bella looked at me with a puzzled expression for a second before realisation dawned on her face. "Oh, don't worry about it. She's not going to come over here and start screaming at you and violently attacking you for no reason again."

I laughed dryly; it hadn't been funny then and it still wasn't funny now, but I could appreciate the irony of a woman a foot shorter than me leaving marks when she attacked me. "Actually, I wanted to know if she'd hurled any more unfounded allegations your way whilst you were too sleepy to defend yourself," I clarified

Bella hesitated before shaking her head. "I think she probably wanted to ask a whole host of questions, but I was in too much shock to really participate in any sort of conversation with her."

She seemed like she was keeping something else back, but I wasn't in any state of mind to be analysing what she was or wasn't telling me and maybe it had been the same for her this morning. Well, I could certainly empathise with that feeling. On the plus side, I no longer felt an ounce of tiredness and I ventured to guess that Bella didn't either. Nothing like getting metaphorically doused with ice cold water first thing in the morning to clear all thoughts of sleep or fatigue from your mind. I wasn't a big follower of magazines; hadn't been since I bough music magazines as a teenager, but I knew enough about the industry to know that 'Famous' wasn't just sold in New York – it was a nationwide magazine. I wasn't even fucking famous! Surely if I didn't have management teams and agents calling me at literally the crack of dawn this morning to warn me about this article, I wasn't famous enough to actually be on the front of a nationwide publication.

I groaned at the thought of what Carmen, my manager, would say about this when she found out. I knew she wouldn't exactly be pleased and not only because the article kind of made it seem like I was luring my young co-star away from her serious boyfriend, but because she absolutely hated working during the weekend. Maybe that's why she hadn't called me about this yet; she was out of town and wouldn't be yelling at me until 7 o'clock Monday morning, eastern seaboard time.

"What's wrong?" Bella asked as soon as I put my head back to rest on the sofa.

"I was just thinking of the choice words my manager is going to be saying to me on Monday morning," I answered, my head still tilted back to look at the white, blank ceiling.

Bella heaved out a heavy sigh. "Tell me about it," she agreed. "I turned my phone on after Alice left and I had messages from my manager, my agent and my publicist – I didn't even know I _had_ a publicist."

Well, maybe it wasn't me that had been worthy of the cover of the magazine at all, but Bella; Bella, who was pretty well known in the industry even though she tried to keep a low profile. That made much more sense, though it didn't make things any better.

"How bad was it?"

I felt the back of the chair under my head pushed back a little as Bella no doubt adopted the same position I was currently sitting in. I don't know why, but staring at nothing seemed to ease the headache that was developing rapidly.

"It could have been worse, I suppose," she said. "Renata, my manager wanted to know how long it had been going on and whether Jacob and I had split up first. My agent Paul wanted to know if I'd thought about what it would do to filming if we had a falling out and my publicist wanted to know why I hadn't told her about it first so she could have had a hand in controlling what they'd written."

It didn't escape my notice that absolutely no one on her team had called to tell her of the _false_ stories being printed about her personal life. Apparently even if you were in the industry and knew exactly how it all worked, you still were not immune to the power of the printed word. Thinking about the people in Bella's life that should have known better than to think for even a second that these stories were true, I wondered very briefly about whether Jacob had found out about the article yet. According to the magazine, he was in Texas and would have had ample time to have been informed of this development in his relationship. I wanted to know if he'd contacted Bella to ask her about it or if she'd called him to explain, but didn't have the balls to actually ask.

As if reading my mind, Bella was the one to mention her not quite ex boyfriend first.

"Jake left a voicemail for me too." Her voice was even and I tried my best not to move from my spot, as if this piece of information wasn't any more important than the previous pieces she had shared with me. I made some sort of noise to indicate that I was still listening and she should go on. "He told me he didn't believe a word and not to worry about what he thought."

Jacob sounded like a nice guy, which I had pretty much always thought he was, but it had never really mattered too much until recently. It wasn't that I resented the fact that he had handled the situation very well and very rationally, it was just that...well, I didn't know what it was. I guess it would have been easier to want Bella to finally break up with him if he was a complete prick, or if I could make him a prick in my head, but I couldn't even do that.

"I felt like a completely thoughtless bitch," Bella continues, which did cause me to raise my head and look at her.

"What?" I asked, confused. "Why?"

Bella moved herself so that she could turn her head to face me instead of the blank whiteness above us. "Because I didn't even think about calling him to let him know until I heard his voice." She sighed heavily and went back to her previous position.

I understood what she didn't say; she felt as if she was selfish for not considering what his feelings may have been about the article. Sure the article made Bella and I look like we had no moral fibre, but it also kind of made Jacob look like a fool. After all, although people were no doubt feeling bad for you about being cheated on, there was also a significant amount of the population that wouldn't believe you knew absolutely nothing about it – usually the part that had never had it happen to them.

"If you felt in any way how I felt when I read this piece of garbage, there was absolutely no way you would have been able to think of anything other than whether you'd just woken up in a parallel universe," I assured her. Really, there was no need for Bella to feel bad because the shock that the magazine had given me this morning had rendered my brain numb and it was only now that I was beginning to think somewhat clearly again – and that was only because there was someone else with me that was forcing me into having a coherent conversation.

"I take it no one called you early this morning to share the good news with you?"

"Jasper did actually," I informed her. "Well, he _tried_ to, but he was being a little too cryptic for me on less than 5 hours sleep so I just hung up before he could really tell me about it."

"Ugh...don't remind me about sleeping," Bella groaned. "The only reason I'm not feeling like the walking dead right now is because this had actually blown my mind into little pieces and it's too busy trying to fix itself for anything else."

I knew that feeling only too well. "You only have yourself to blame," I teased, to which she made some sort of indignant sound. "You were the one that kept telling me that she wanted to stay for 'just one last set'."

"You were the one that said we should go along with them when the bar shut," she countered.

"Totally worth it though right?"

I heard and felt Bella's laughter. "Abso-fucking-lutely!"

I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face at Bella's vehement agreement that last night had been worth the lost hours of sleep that we were no longer going to be getting back. If I thought about it, Bella was the source of a lot of my lost sleep and I didn't even have to be spending time with her for that to be the case. In all honesty, if I really examined the amount of time I spent thinking about Bella when I wasn't with her, I would freak myself out, never mind her. Still, as worried as I had been all of Friday morning about how different it would be now that I was determined to try and let Bella know that I was no longer just content with being friends anymore, it was a huge relief to be able to spend time with her without anything changing. Well, some things changed. I was far more aware of her and of how I reacted around her. Maybe it wasn't so much an increased awareness as it was me no longer actively blocking it all out. However, I had been worried about it changing for the worse; worried about losing the ease we had with each other and it seemed that I had been worried for absolutely nothing.

_*_

_The afternoon had been absolutely exhausting in every single sense of the word. Emotionally, I was worn out. Physically, I had bruises in several places and once again nearly had my lip split by Bella's elbow. My ego had taking a huge bashing from Sue who had yelled at both Bella and I for not putting in enough emotional angst into the scene. She wanted the scene to speak of finality; an end; almost like a death, she'd said. It wasn't as if Bella and I weren't _trying_ it was just really fucking hard to get the exact tone she wanted when we couldn't read her mind and all she could tell us was that she wanted _'more'_, more of everything we were doing. She didn't want us to act anything in this scene; she wanted us to live it. She rambled on about everything being organic and nothing coming off too cheesy or too over-dramatised. And yet all of the physical aspects of the scene _had_ to be choreographed and of course it was over-dramatised; it was a fucking film!_

_In the end, we'd had to run through the scene about eight times before she dismissed everyone after she'd gotten material that she deemed she could work with. If she was going to be this tough with a few rehearsal takes, she was going to be a fucking nightmare when we finally started actually shooting. Then again, maybe it was the knowledge that we would be starting for real on Monday that was getting her so worked up; Sue hadn't really been that specific or stressed out until today. I had to admit that unlike Wednesday, when I had a hard time seeing the scene for what it was – a scene – I had no problem distinguishing today. I, as Edward, was annoyed as fuck by the third time we'd had to do the scene with Sue shouting more and more vague directions in the background. I, as Rob, was still very much in his dark, possessive, angry, lost mindset. Well, at least that's what I was going for, but I think I may have just come off as fed up and angry, which may have just riled Sue up more. _

_Bella and I couldn't wait to get the hell off set once Sue had dismissed us. We practically ran to the awaiting car and told the driver to floor it, just in case she changed her mind and wanted us back to do it all over again. Once we left the vicinity of the lot, all we could do for about 10 minutes was laugh; laugh because otherwise we'd probably both start crying. I'm sure the driver thought we'd gone insane, but the relief that we were finally out of there for at least 2 days was intoxicating. _

_We walked into my apartment, still chuckling sporadically about absolutely nothing just because of the freedom that we both felt at this very moment. There was also probably some hysteria mixed in there at the realisation that after Sunday we would actually start shooting and it really would matter if we sucked. I had no doubt that Bella wouldn't actually suck, but I wasn't convinced about my own ability to _not_ ruin one of the most talked-about movies of the past 5 years. _

"_What are you two laughing about?" Rosalie was walking out of my/her bedroom dressed like she was on her way to somewhere special. _

"_You look nice," I commented, not answering her question._

_She furrowed her forehead. "Why do you sound so surprised?"_

_I rolled my eyes; it wasn't like Rosalie – of all people – didn't know how good she looked on a daily basis. Rose may have been full of insecurities like everyone else, but she wasn't under any illusion as to the power of her physical appearance. "I'm not going to stroke your already too large ego Rose," I told her, grinning._

_The look on her face was priceless. "You can bloody talk," she argued. "I have to constantly assure you that you don't look fat in your jeans!"_

_She was lying, of course, but she said it in such a serious, convincing manner that I had to look back at Bella to make sure she didn't actually believe a word of it. I didn't want the girl thinking I was either gay or a typical Hollywood actor who couldn't drink normal beer because I was watching my fucking carbohydrate content. Bella looked like she was trying not to laugh, but I wasn't sure whether she believed Rosalie and thought I was a god damn idiot or because she knew that Rose was just teasing. I caught her eye and she burst out laughing._

"_Geez Edward," she rasped out in between chuckles. "I think Jane may be a little thrilled that you put so much effort to looking extra special for work."_

_I was both relieved and annoyed. Whilst Bella obviously didn't believe that Rosalie was actually telling the truth, she was now joining in with my best friend in yanking my fucking chain. Great. _

"_Remind me never to give either of you two a compliment again," I grumbled, walking into the living area and flopping into the nearest chair. Honestly, I sometimes dreaded what it would be like if they actually became friends instead of just friendly. I don't think life as I knew it would ever be the same again._

"_Oh Ed, we were just teasing," Bella soothed, sitting on the arm of the chair I was on and shoving me a little with her shoulder. She was smiling at me so genuinely, her eyes twinkling with amusement that even if I had actually been in a bad mood, I would have quickly gotten out of it. Unfortunately for me, Rosalie saw the exchange and gave me a very pointed look as she sat down on the large couch that had been my bed for the past couple of weeks._

"_Anyway, to answer your question," she said, moving the conversation back to where it had been. "I look extra special because I have a date tonight."_

_My eyes widened and I was suddenly sitting straight up instead of the slouched position I had been in before. "A date?" _

_Rosalie shot me a strange look before nodding. "Yeah, you know where a guy asks you out, takes you out to dinner and spends the entire night trying to actually have a conversation with you when you know all he wants to do is stare at your breasts."_

_Normally I didn't have a problem with Rosalie going out with whoever asked her out because if she'd agreed to go out with them in the first place, they couldn't have been too bad. It was a little on the polite side to say that Rose didn't suffer fools gladly; she didn't suffer them at all. I was extremely protective of my best friend given what she had gone through, but I also knew that no one could handle themselves as well as she could. However, what with Jasper telling me that Rosalie's life may literally be in danger, I was a little cautious this time, which she wouldn't appreciate at all. _

"_You don't know anyone in New York," I pointed out. I knew that she would most likely get annoyed very soon with my asking about her date this much, but she was going to have to fucking deal with it because Jasper had gotten me a little paranoid. _

"_That's why I'm going on a date," Rosalie said slowly, warning clear in her voice. "That way I will know at least one other person." Bella seemed to sense that there was tension building in the room and she probably wisely moved from beside me to go into the kitchen._

"_Who's the guy?" I asked, ignoring the warning again._

_Rosalie narrowed her eyes and her mouth twisted before she answered me. "I met him when I was trying to get a cab on 5__th__ a couple of days ago."_

"_Where are you going?"_

"_When did you become my father Edward?" Rosalie snapped._

"_I'm not trying to be your father Rose," I argued back. "I'm just curious about your date. Isn't this what friends do? Ask each other about their lives?"_

_Rosalie raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow and her lips stretched into a slow grin. "Of course," she conceded and I knew what was coming. I had backed myself into a fucking corner and I was eternally grateful that Bella had actually walked into a different room, though I wished the apartment wasn't open-plan. "So tell me _friend_, how's it going with the whole Bella situation?"_

_Rosalie's voice wasn't loud, but I was absolutely terrified that Bella could hear it from the kitchen; after all, it wasn't as if the apartment was full of noise that would block out our conversation. "Look Rose I'm just concerned," I said, lowering my voice in the hopes that she would do the same._

"_Well you don't have any reason to be," she pointed out. Oh, if only she knew. Hell, if only _I _knew. "I can spot a bastard ten miles in any direction Ed and you know I wouldn't have agreed to go out with anyone like that."_

_I nodded my head, unsure what I could say to her without pissing her off further or giving away the fact that something else was going on here besides usual friendly concern. Damn Jasper; I was really going to have to get him to tell me what the hell was going on sometime soon because I hated being so _unsure_ about something else in my life. Rosalie looked at me for a beat longer, as if she could tell that there was something else behind my sudden questioning of her choices. She must have decided either that there was nothing or that she wasn't that interested in finding out because she got up to leave without saying anything else. She did, however say a very pointed goodbye to Bella as she left, laughing all the time until the door clicked close behind her. I needed to get myself a new best friend._

_Bella reappeared and sat herself down on the seat that Rosalie had very recently vacated and started talking about going out, not at all mentioning the awkwardness of a few minutes ago. I was thankful. I was also thankful she seemed not to have heard Rosalie mentioning her name in our game of one-upmanship. I didn't know whether I actually wanted to go out tonight because I was going to Carlisle's bachelor party tomorrow, which would be pretty fucking heavy – doctors can drink like no one else I know. However, Bella could convince me of pretty much anything so when she promised that it would be a quiet night to just let off some of the pressure and frustration from today, I could do nothing but nod my head in agreement._

_*_

_I had never been more grateful to have taken a flyer from some random guy on a street before tonight. Bella and I had been discussing where to go after our pizza dinner when someone literally shoved a piece of paper in my hand advertising the opening of a new bar in Brooklyn which would be having some sort of open mic night/small gig tonight. It sounded like the perfect way to unwind to both myself and Bella so we quickly made our way to the address advertised. The bar honestly looked like a run-down warehouse from the outside apart from the stylised neon sign that advertised it as 'The Watering Hole'. The inside couldn't have been more different from the external appearance though and as soon as we entered, we could hear someone playing acoustic and singing their own version of a 'Rolling Stones' classic. _

"_This place is absolutely perfect," Bella gushed as we made our way over to the bar._

_I nodded my agreement, smiling at the genuine way her eyes lit up with happiness as she took in everything around her. The bar was busy, but it wasn't packed inside, having just enough people to give it atmosphere. I ordered two beers and a soda for Bella because she was still underage. Just another reminder of the fact that she was a little too young for me to really be pursuing, but apparently some part of me just didn't want to listen anymore. I would be exchanging her soda for the contents of the second bottle once we got situated somewhere we wouldn't be noticed too much by the staff. _

_Surprisingly, there was a small booth at the front corner of the room, just to the right of the stage. It was perfect because the high-backed booth covered us from the rest of the bar, but gave us an incredible view of the stage. There were few things better in life than sitting back listening to good, live music and having a beer with your friends. The fact that the friend I was sitting with was also the girl that I couldn't seem to stop thinking about was an added bonus to the evening and a very welcome one. Bella and I hadn't really been out together much like this. We'd gone to dinner several times, had coffee and hung out at either her apartment or mine, but this seemed almost like a date. Except that it wasn't because as far as Bella was concerned we were just friends and that's all I saw us as too. I was really going to have to work at changing that soon, but I still hadn't really come up with a plan as to how. _

_I needed to find out what the situation was with her and Jacob, but I didn't know how to ask her about it seeing as I'd never actually brought it up before and it would seem weird to do it now, when she hadn't mentioned it first. I didn't want to complicate matters for her on that front, but other than just outright telling her I was interested in becoming so much more than her friend, I had nothing. I was reminding myself of a very insecure teenage girl right now and I kind of hated myself for it._

"_Hey," Bella's voice broke through my thoughts. "Are you alright?"_

_I nodded. "I was just in a daze I guess."_

"_You seemed a million miles away," she observed. _

"_Nah," I shrugged. "Maybe a few hundred thousand, but not a million."_

_Bella rolled her eyes. "Always have to be a smart ass." She shoved me playfully with her shoulder and then stayed where she was, leaning into me, as the next performer came on stage. _

_I was more than a little shocked that Bella had chosen to just stay leaning on me instead of sitting back up, but I wasn't going to question it. Instead, I chose to just enjoy the feeling of having the woman I was interested in actually physically close to me without it being for a scene or because she was giving me a friendly hug. I was enjoying the moment so much that it turned into several moments and every single performer on stage had become background music to the fact that Bella was behaving as if she thought this could have been a date too. I was only vaguely aware of the waitresses that came to our table to offer us more drinks, but I was very much aware of the fact that Bella seemed very comfortable where she was. I couldn't tell how long had passed since either of us had said a word to each other, but it was Bella again who broke the silence between us._

"_You should go up on stage and sing," she encouraged, twisting around to face me. In doing so, she moved further away from me and I had to stop myself from reaching out and pulling her back – because that wouldn't have been a friendly gesture at all._

_It took me a few moments to understand what she was trying to say, but when the words finally infiltrated my very distracted brain, I was immediately shaking my head. "Not a chance," I refused._

"_Why?" she asked, sitting further upright and away from me. _

"_Because it would possibly be the most embarrassing thing in the world," I told her, taking a pull from my third bottle of beer._

"_But you must be able to sing if they considered using your actual voice in the movie," she continued._

_I shook my head again. "The fact that they're not should tell you all you need to know about why I'm not going up on that stage Bella." The studio had decided to use original recordings in the film instead of trying to make me sound like the man I was playing. I was grateful and relieved with the decision because as a fan, I wouldn't have wanted someone else's voice to be singing the words of the songs that meant the world to both him and them._

_Bella, however, didn't want to take no for an answer at all and she instead got up and started to tug me towards the stage with her. "Come on, we can go up together and embarrass the hell out of ourselves," she insisted. The pleading look on her face was enough to make my arguments die on my lips and I followed her towards the edge of the stage, loving the way her entire face lit up when she was sure that I was conceding to her wishes. I didn't exactly want to get up on stage and sing to a bunch of strangers, but tonight was about blowing off steam and if this was the way Bella wanted to do that, this was the way we were going to do that._

_I knew Bella played the guitar, but she had refused to let me hear her several times, so I was more than surprised when she reached out to pick up the instrument at the foot of the microphone stand. I raised my eyebrows in question at her, but she just smiled and winked at me before standing in front of the microphone._

"_Hey everyone," she said to the chatter of the room. "Sorry to disturb your quiet and no doubt enjoyable evening, but my friend and I," she gestured toward me, "would like to do a little duet for you all. It's kind of our first time performing together, so if it's awful please feel free to boo us off stage, but just don't throw anything hard at us."_

_There was smattering of laughter around the room when Bella finished her introduction of the two of us. I had no idea what she was up to, but she was jerking her head towards the piano behind her and all I could do as she started to strum the first few notes of a very familiar song, was walk towards the small bench and follow her lead. I had absolutely no idea what Bella had been embarrassed about before because she played beautifully – probably better than I did. There was a softness and caress in the notes that she played that I could never hear in my own playing, that I could only hope to emulate. I joined her during the fourth bar of the song, trying to keep up with the changes she was making to the well-known piece of music. She didn't come in with the vocals like I thought she would, but instead looked back at me and raised her eyebrows in a challenge so I had no choice but to open my mouth and let the words pour forth._

_I got lost in the music. As cheesy and corny as it sounds, I was so completely absorbed in performing with Bella that before I knew it, we'd finished our third song together and were waving to the crowd in thanks. Bella was laughing uncontrollably as we stepped off the stage to make way for the next brave group of performers. I couldn't help but laugh with her; we were both obviously high on the performance and it was a good while before we got settled down enough to pay attention to everyone again. Throughout the night, several of the other performers came up to us to tell us how much they enjoyed our impromptu set. Some people recognised Bella when they came to talk to us and to my utter surprise one or two people even recognised _my_ face, though they couldn't think of my name. However, the majority of people didn't know us from the rest of the patrons of the new bar. _

_By the time the bar was getting ready to close, Bella and I had made several new acquaintances who invited us to an after party of sorts back in Manhattan. I was eager to go for two reasons: the first was that it was such a relief to be doing something and thinking about something that didn't directly have anything to do with the movie or the problems that kept cropping up in my life. Music had always been a sort of escape for me and I wasn't above using it as such tonight. The second reason was that I didn't want this night with Bella to end. There was something different about tonight with the two of us, from the increasing amount of physical contact to the way we'd performed together on stage, I couldn't shake the feeling that something huge was happening tonight and I wanted to keep the momentum. Bella and I had shared something tonight that I knew she had never shared with Jacob and that had to mean something right? _

"_Come on Bella," I urged when she hesitated with her reply. It was already one in the morning and I knew that she must have been absolutely exhausted; I certainly was. However, I was selfish and if going to this party meant that I had more time to spend with Bella then there was no question that we should go._

_Bella laughed a little at my pleading. "Don't you have a bachelor party to rest up for?" _

"_You can rest when you're dead," one of the musicians passing our table commented loudly. _

_I didn't exactly agree with him, but I was glad that he was at least saying comments that could possibly encourage Bella to take up the offer. "We'll both have plenty of time to sleep in tomorrow, but when are we going to have the chance to do something like this again when we start shooting?"_

_She knew I was right and I knew that she was on the verge of agreeing to come to the after party, which I have to admit, made me slightly giddy. I needed to control myself; I mean what the hell did I think was going to happen anyway? That she would agree to go to this thing with me and then she'd agree to go on a date with me without me even asking her? God I was a fucking idiot sometimes and I was eternally grateful that no one could read my mind because I was pretty sure that if Bella could, whatever interest or attraction she may have felt for me before would be instantly extinguished. _

_Bella thoroughly enjoyed the meeting of musicians that happened in a very trendy loft conversion somewhere in Greenwich Village. She was laughing for the majority of the night, catching my eye during the times when we weren't together to ensure me that she was having a good time. She played a little more and we both listened to several of our new acquaintances try out songs and beats that they'd just come up with. I admired all these people that had the courage to share something with the world that I always considered so damn personal; it was something I would never be brave enough to do. _

_We left an hour after I'd first suggested going back, but when Bella insisted we had to stay for a little longer, I just couldn't refuse something that obviously made her incredibly happy. There was a certain freedom about Bella tonight that I had only seen glimpses of in the time that I'd known her. It wasn't that Bella was unhappy during all the times we'd been hanging out, but in that party, with those people, it was like she just had no other care in the world other than to have fun. It was nice to see her like that, especially knowing some of the things she had been dealing with lately. _

_I heard her sigh contentedly beside me as we walked back to our apartment building surrounded by the still warm summer air. I smiled at the sound, glad that she was happy and stress free for once._

"_What a night, huh?"_

_Bella turned to look at me, her lips stretched out in a genuine smile, her eyes sparkling with joy. "It was fantastic! I'm so glad you took the flyer from that guy."_

_I laughed and told her that I'd had exactly the same thought hours earlier. "I'm glad you force me into going up on stage Bella." I really was glad that she had because hearing her play and seeing her play was an amazing experience; like I'd gotten to see a part of her that she kept to herself. I felt incredibly privileged to have been able to be at her side when she did that. "You're an amazing guitarist."_

_Bella looked away from me as the words left my mouth, no doubt uncomfortable with my praise, however deserved it may have been. Honestly, Bella was incredibly talented and it was a shame that she didn't recognise that. _

_She was still looking in another direction when she started talking again. "You have the most hauntingly spectacular voice I've ever heard," she said after a while of looking at the scenery around us. She turned back to look at me briefly before elaborating. "I was so shocked when I heard you sing the first time that I almost forgot what the hell I was playing."_

_I had to laugh at that because you definitely couldn't tell during the performance; it sounded seamless to me, almost as if we'd done it before. I wasn't entirely comfortable with her praise of my singing because I could take a compliment about as well as Bella could when it came to two things; acting and music. Instead, I made some comment about her letting me hear her singing voice. It had started off as a joke to get the focus off me, but I found myself incredibly curious as Bella refused over and over again to let me hear her sing. In my new quest to hear her sing, I had inadvertently revealed to Bella that I found her voice to be alluring. Well, okay, I didn't use those exact words, but I don't know how else she could have taken what I said. Finally, however she conceded to letting me hear her sing. _

_One thing I learned about Bella in that moment was that although she was modest about a great many things – her acting ability and her talent concerning the guitar among those things – she certainly was not being modest about her inability to sing. I had literally never heard someone sing so badly and I lived with Rose. I was in shock, not knowing for the briefest of moments whether or not she was just kidding with me, purposely singing off key to teach me a lesson about pushing her. However, it became clear by the end of the first verse that Bella wasn't joking when she said that she couldn't sing; she had a terrible voice._

_I was laughing before I even knew it and it wasn't because Bella couldn't carry a tune to save her life; it was because it was so at odds with everything else that I had learned about her tonight. She was musically gifted in one aspect and completely devoid of any talent in another; the girl really was a complete mystery. I put my hand on her mouth to prevent her from going any because I couldn't catch my breath enough to just tell her to stop. Not surprisingly Bella did not take kindly to me laughing at her when it had been me who insisted she sing. I felt like a complete jackass when she turned her head to look away from me; she had every right to be pissed off right now. _

"_Bella," I implored, all humour gone. I didn't want her to be upset. She refused to turn around even when I called her name, so I did the only thing that made sense to do in this situation; I took her face in my hands and turned her head slightly so she was finally looking at me; so she could see for herself that I hadn't meant to be cruel or unkind to her; that I would never be those things to her. "I really wasn't laughing at you," I tried to explain. "It was just such a shock because you are musical and your voice is...well, it's kind of hypnotic."_

_I was pleading with her to hear the sincerity and understand the apology in my voice and finally her eyes softened and there was an acceptance in them that I had not seen when I tried to apologise before. She bit her lip as she stared into my eyes and for a few glorious moments, I could see how this would play out. I would lean down closer to her and she would meet me in the middle, standing on her toes so that she could reach me. I would pull her closer still with the hand that was still attached to hers and finally, after what seemed likes weeks and weeks of trying to fight this very moment, our lips would touch and nothing in our lives would be the same again. It played out in my head in a much quicker sequence than it was happening in reality, but I could absolutely taste the anticipation in the air of what was about to come – and it wasn't just coming from me. I was close enough to see the dilation of Bella's pupils and feel the quickening of her breath, which pretty much copied my own. I was leaning down, so sure that the happy hours we'd spent together tonight would be nicely finished off by this moment._

_I was so absolutely certain of what was about to happen with the two of us that it took me by complete surprise to find myself knocked sideways and almost thrown to the floor by something hard. I didn't quite know what had happened, but I knew for damn sure what hadn't. I didn't know whether to be relieved that I hadn't kissed Bella before finding out what was going on with her and Jacob right now or absolutely devastated that the perfect opportunity to show her I was interested was interrupted by some idiot._

*

Given what had happened this morning, I was a little more relieved than devastated about the interruption last night, though no less annoyed with the faceless stranger. Given the fact that someone was apparently following us around without either of us having seen them, a kiss last night would have given them the 'money shot'. There was also the fact that I now knew Bella and Jacob weren't completely done and a kiss last night would have just complicated matters further. Still...I had to wonder how long I was going to be able to hold out; it seemed to be getting harder and harder to just be 'friendly' around this woman who had me tied around in knots without even really trying.

*

**BPOV (Friday night)**

Edward's voice was heartbreaking; absolutely and completely heartbreaking. I was absolutely amazed at the sound that was coming out of his mouth right now. This hadn't been what I expected at all when I forced him to come up on stage and perform with me. Honestly, I didn't know what the hell to expect because I'd never done this before; I'd never wanted to do this before. I hadn't even consciously wanted to do it five minutes ago, but for some reason the idea of performing with Edward grabbed hold of me and before I could really think about it, I was dragging the poor man on stage with me. I don't know what it was about today, but the stress of the entire week at work added to the emotional rollercoaster I'd been on with my mother had obviously done weird things to my brain because I was sitting in front of a room full of strangers and playing the guitar. It was like I'd taken leave of my body – or at the very least my senses.

And yet...Edward's voice wrapped around me like it was holding me in place, keeping me from running off to throw up in the restrooms as soon as I realised what I was actually doing. I don't think I could adequately put into words the absolutely ethereal quality of his voice and yet it's solidity. I hadn't really thought about what to play, just started to strum very familiar notes on the guitar; notes that I had played over and over again. I had learned _'I looked at you'_ by 'The Doors' practically as soon as I was able to play the notes; they had been one of Renee's favourite bands when she was younger. Over the years, I'd learned how to slow down the piece to give it a different kind of sound, but it was only when I heard Edward's voice wrap around the words and the melody that I understood why you would ever want to slow this piece of music down. I looked back at him, astounded by his talent and completely captivated by the way his voice was floating in the air around me. If I didn't find Edward Cullen attractive before, this would have sealed the deal. As it was, I was now absolutely certain that sooner or later, I would break and just confess the fact that I was hopelessly drawn to him in a way I was only beginning to accept and was nowhere close to comprehending.

The second song was his choice, something by an English band that I had only vaguely heard of, but I knew the song well enough to play it and the way he sang it made me glad that I could. At various points in our little performance, I was holding back tears because Edward's voice was impossibly beautiful. It reminded me of everything in the world that made you happy: the warmth of the sun on your skin; the feel of ice cream in your mouth on a hot summer's day; the freshly cut smell of grass in the summer; the feeling of lying down in a freshly changed bed. Edward's voice was just entirely the best thing I'd ever heard and if I could have had a single thought other than how perfect he sounded, I would have asked myself why he had chosen to act instead of sing. It seemed like such a waste for the world to never hear this man's soulful sound.

The third song was new, fun and light and even then I could feel my heart shatter and rebuild with every note he sang. In that 10 or 15 minutes on stage, I was certain of only one thing; whatever was going on with Edward and I was going to be something huge and something that would probably change everything in my life. I was both terrified at this realisation and exhilarated at the thought. The anticipation of being on the verge of something I couldn't quite explain and didn't quite know if I was ready for mixed with the heady feeling of knowing that I had just faced one of my biggest hang-ups and lived to tell the tale made me positively giddy. So giddy in fact that as Edward pulled me off the stage so other people could have their turn, I couldn't stop laughing. I wasn't laughing at anything in particular; I was just happy. For the first time in a very long time, I felt purely happy. There wasn't a single worry in my head and that was a more than welcome development, even if it only lasted for the rest of tonight.

"That was..." I tried to capture the feel of the experience in a few words, but failed miserably, so settled instead of sighing in happiness and leaning against Edward again. I had found at the beginning of the night that this was a very comfortable way to sit and right now I may have been blurring the boundaries of our friendship, but hell, they'd been blurred for a long time anyway right? What was one more night?

I was slightly taken aback by my own thoughts, but shoved away any doubts or questions that I had for myself before they could ruin the good mood I was in. I just wanted one night where I didn't have to think about anything but what was happening in front of me. I'd had an emotionally draining week both at work and in my personal life and I just wanted to feel something other than worried or sad or angry at myself.

For some very strange reason, Edward and I were sort of adopted by a group of musicians who invited us to some sort of musical get together somewhere in Manhattan. I was eager to go because I didn't want the magic and the peace of mind that I had found tonight to go away, but there was another part of me – the logical part – who thought that maybe tonight was not the night I should be careless about my life. There was still so much I had to sort out and having this escape was great if I didn't use it as another method of running when I couldn't physically get away. My reluctance to give an answer must have been obvious because soon strangers were cajoling me into accepting an invitation from other relative strangers. Really, there was no one else but Edward who should have tried to persuade me because the rest of the encouragements to go were superfluous to Edward's insistence that we both 'drop by for a couple of songs or whatever'. If the man ever fully understood what he could get me to do by just asking, I would be in a whole heap of fucking trouble.

*

Two and a half hours after we arrived at someone's very fashionable loft conversion in Manhattan, we were saying goodbye to people that we had really bonded with, though I doubted that any of us would remember each other too clearly in the morning...or later in the morning would be more accurate. Edward had suggested leaving an hour ago, but I had been having far too good a time to want to leave. There was something absolutely intoxicating about being with a bunch of people that were all trying to create something in order to explore who they were. I loved that; it was so rare to be with people like that in Hollywood, whether they were musicians or actors and I missed that. I had fallen in love with acting for the simple fact that it allowed you to explore the limits of who you were and challenged how you thought of yourself. The people we had been with tonight were doing exactly the same thing with their music and I just couldn't seem to get enough.

It also helped that I had gotten to hear Edward sing again a couple more times; something that was quickly becoming one of my favourite things in the world. I vaguely wondered whether he would agree to record himself singing for me and give it to me as a present; after all, my birthday was in about a month. Then again, would it be weird of me to ask my friend to record himself singing? Friends did things like that right? Well, okay, so I hadn't done that with any of my other friends, but none of them had a voice that felt like cool silk on reddened skin.

"What a night, huh?" Edward commented as we walked the darkened streets of Manhattan. It was about four in the morning and the roads and sidewalks had quietened somewhat, but they were by no means empty.

"It was fantastic," I enthused. "I'm so glad you took that flyer from that guy."

Edward chuckled. "I actually had the same thought earlier tonight," he admitted. "I'm glad you forced me into going up on stage Bella."

I was too. If he hadn't agreed to perform with me, I still wouldn't have heard his absolutely stunning voice and now that I had heard it, I couldn't imagine having not. It was a very weird sensation, but I felt as if hearing Edward sing taught me something else about him, though I couldn't exactly define what that something was. One of the most infuriating things about my relationship with Edward was that there were so many things I couldn't define or put a name to and it was as confusing as hell.

"You're an amazing guitarist," he praised sincerely.

I couldn't contain the smile or the reddening of my cheeks at his words because Edward may have been an actor by trade, but he was obviously an incredibly talented musician too. Really, he couldn't have been more perfect for the part that he was playing right now; it was like he was born to play the brooding musician who had fallen irrevocably in love with a woman he was always destined to lose.

"You have the most hauntingly spectacular voice I've ever heard," I told him honestly in return. "I was so shocked when I heard you sing the first time that I almost forgot what the hell I was playing."

Edward laughed. "Well now that you've heard me sing, it's only fair that you return the favour."

I was horrified by his suggestion. "Not a chance," I told him outright. "I may be able to play a few songs on the guitar, but my singing should only be inflicted on people I want to torture."

"Somehow, I don't think I can believe you."

I shrugged. "Believe what you want Ed, I'm telling you the god's honest truth. No false modesty here."

"Well I can't really judge until I hear you now can I?"

I shook my head. "Seriously not a chance."

"Come on Bella."

"No!"

"Please?" He was standing in front of me now, blocking my path forward. I tried to step around him, but he grabbed my shoulders and stepped with me so that I still couldn't move past him.

I sighed in exasperation; it was far too early in the morning for this. "Edward, why do you want to hurt your ears like this?"

Edward shrugged. "I just don't think you can possibly be that bad," he told me. "You're speaking voice is almost melodic in itself."

I think my eyes may have popped out of their sockets a little at the words that had come out of his mouth. My speaking voice was absolutely not melodic; I swore far too much and stumbled over the words that I wanted to get out there. What the hell was Edward listening to? The only time I made any sense at all was when I was saying someone else's words that I had memorised. Otherwise, my mouth couldn't seem to keep up with my brain and I often didn't make any kind of sense. Still, it wasn't like I was fighting a battle I had any hopes of winning with Edward looking at me so earnestly and asking me to show him something akin to what he had shared with me. I really needed to find a spine around this man. Ever since I'd acknowledged to myself that I was attracted to him, I couldn't seem to just say no to anything he said.

"What do you want me to sing?" The defeat in my voice was clear and immediately Edward's eyes brightened.

"How about 'Light My Fire'?"

I shook my head vehemently. "I'm not going to butcher a classic Edward," I protested, moving my feet forward once more now that he had gone back to his previous spot beside me instead of directly in front of me.

"Okay then how about 'Dancing in the Streets'?"

I laughed at the complete change in musical genres he had presented me with. "Are you sure about this?" I had to give him one last chance to back out because once he heard me sing, I doubted very much that he would see me the same way he did now; in fact, I was a little doubtful that he would even want to walk with me anymore, let alone be friends with me. I was just thankful that there weren't too many people around to witness the horror that was to befall Edward.

I opened my mouth and started, hearing myself completely miss a key by a mile and a half before I had even gotten through the first verse. I absolutely could not look at Edward as I embarrassed myself like this in front of him. Here he was with a voice that I was fairly sure could heal people, hearing the fact that I could not carry a tune. Well, he was the one who had almost begged me to let him hear it; it was his fault if his ears were now currently bleeding.

As I took a breath to start on the chorus, I felt Edward's hand clamp over my mouth to drown out the horrendous noise coming from it. I didn't know whether to feel grateful or insulted, so I settled on feeling a little of both. I had looked up when his hand clamped over my mouth and saw that he was actually shaking with laughter. I was a little indignant at the scene before me; it wasn't like I had told him I could sing at all.

"I told you!" I said into his hand, though it didn't come out sounding anything like that.

Edward was still laughing uncontrollably, but took his hand from my mouth as soon as I had spoken. He bent over to try and catch his breath, but he was still laughing so much that there wasn't much chance of that at all. I was overwhelmed with the urge to push him over. It was a little bit fucking rude of him to laugh at me like this when he was the one who had insisted on hearing me try and sing. I had warned him over and over again that it wasn't a good idea and he hadn't listened; he had no right to be laughing now.

"Sorry," he said finally in between fits of laughter. "Sorry."

I was a little pissed. "This was your fault," I huffed, feeling ridiculous and stupid and completely and utterly ashamed. I knew I didn't really have anything to be ashamed of because people were good at different things and I just wasn't good at singing. "You're absolutely not allowed to laugh at me."

"I think I'm just laughing from shock," Edward said, finally able to straighten himself to look at me. He furrowed his eyebrows in a look of concern and stepped closer to me. "I really didn't mean to laugh at you."

I didn't say anything, still smarting a little from his rather rude outburst of laughter. I looked away from him at the yellow cab that was driving past us, not leaving room for interpretation that I was annoyed at him.

"Bella," his voice had changed, no longer any hint of laughter in it. I felt his hand move my face back to face him and I could do nothing but stare up into his ridiculously green eyes, shining with sincere apology. "I really wasn't laughing at you." His hand moved from my face very slowly, as if he wanted to keep it there, but thought better of it. Still, his hand didn't exactly move very far because I felt it on my own only seconds after it had left my face completely. "It was just such a shock because you _are_ musical and your voice is...well, it's kind of hypnotic."

There was no doubt in my mind that Edward was being sincere – or there wouldn't have been if my mind would have been capable in that moment to think past the fact that Edward and I were awfully close. I could feel my breathing quicken as I kept looking at him and in turn I felt his own breathing stutter, as if he was trying to control it, but failing to do so. I didn't know what the hell to do. If my life was a romantic comedy this would be the point where the two leads looked at each other, leaned into the already small space between them and finally, finally kissed. I could feel the charge in the air between us and I could hear my anticipation of my own body as my heart beat quickened in my ears. This was really going to happen. We had both begun to lean in, I could practically _taste_ Edward's breath in my mouth and somewhere in the back of my mind, the logical part of me was screaming in panic. What the fuck was I doing? What were _we_ doing?

Then someone bumped into Edward, knocking him sideways and breaking the moment that we had found ourselves trapped in without ever having seen it coming. I stood in the same spot for what could have been hours, but was probably about three seconds, wondering why I wasn't feeling the pressure of Edward's lips on mine yet. Then I regained my senses and moved to help Edward straighten himself back up after being practically mowed down on the sidewalk by a passing drunk.

"Holy shit, are you okay?" I asked, pushing away all the confusion that surrounded the very strange moment we had shared moments before; I would think about that later when we weren't on the streets at 4 in the morning.

Edward shook his head and looked at me for a beat, then looked down at where my hand was touching his elbow before nodding his head. "Yeah, I'm fine. What the hell was that?"

"Just some drunken idiot that found he had two left feet," I answered quickly.

Edward didn't say anything for the longest moment and I was too afraid to look into his eyes to see the questions that were circling in my head reflected in his eyes. "Maybe we should just get a cab," he suggested after a while. "It's late anyway."

I nodded in agreement, wondering what the hell had just happened to my peaceful night.

*

The pounding seemed to be coming from very far away, but it was coming closer very quickly, getting increasingly louder and more annoying. In my dream the pounding has started off as something else all together, but as I drifted closer and closer into the realm of consciousness, I realised that the noise was coming from my apartment door. I rolled over and looked at the red blinking numbers on the side of my bed and groaned. It was 8:15 and I'd had less than four hours of sleep; someone was going to pay for this. I had a split second where I thought I would be able to ignore the pounding, but when Alice's voice came through the door to call my name, I knew that she wouldn't be going away unless I gave some sort of sign that I was alive. As I forced myself out of bed to open the door, I felt a flash of irritation that Alice hadn't had the decency to call first because barging over here and waking me up from a very good dream – a dream that just compounded everything I had realised in the past few weeks.

"What the hell Alice?" I grumbled when I threw the wooden structure open.

Instead of seeing Alice's face, I was confronted with an image of Edward and I during dinner looking very much like we were enjoying an intimate moment. I blinked several times, wondering whether I was still actually dreaming; like I was watching myself and Edward in my dream. Then my eyes moved upwards to see the headline of a magazine and all thoughts of dreams and being tired flew out of my mind as my eyes widened and absolute horror settled in.

"What the fuck is that?!" I yelled, the volume of my voice being heightened by the fact that at 8 o'clock on Saturday morning, no one in the apartment complex was awake.

The magazine was lowered from my line of sight and replaced by Alice's worried face. "I take it you hadn't seen this?"

I shook my head. "Of course not," I answered. "Until about two minutes ago, I was still asleep! Where the hell did you get that from Alice?" I could hear that my voice had risen a couple of octaves, but I couldn't do anything about it and nor could I do anything about the volume it was now apparently stuck at.

Alice looked around us and started to push me inside my doorway. "I don't think that the hallway is the best place to talk right now Bella." I didn't offer any sort of resistance as she guided me inside my own apartment to the couch where I collapsed and just stared at her, too many questions going through my head to settle on just one.

"I saw it at a newsstand when Jazz and I were going out to get breakfast," she explained, pushing the magazine towards me. "There's a whole article inside..." she paused and looked at me, as if assessing my ability to hear anymore of this. "They have more pictures."

All I could feel inside me was panic. There was probably some confusion and a whole lot of anger in there somewhere, but every other piece of emotion I was feeling was drowned out by the panic rushing though every major blood vessel in my body. I was thinking about last night, on the street and the moment that Edward and I had shared. Had they gotten a picture of that? Or the moment in my doorway after the picture on the cover had been taken; had they gotten a picture of that too? The invasion of privacy was astounding and my heart was thumping for a hundred different reasons as I thought of the many times Edward and I had shared far more intimate moments than the cover shot.

I grabbed the magazine from Alice's outstretched hands and flicked through it quickly to find the double page spread about Edward and I, nearly tearing a few pages in my haste. I couldn't even take in any of the words in front of me because all I saw was picture after picture of Edward and I alone, in very compromising situations. As I quickly drank in the photographs, I felt an immense sense of relief wash over me that the most private moments between us – the moments where I absolutely knew that something uncontrollable was happening with me and Edward – weren't displayed for the world to see. Still, the picture of us outside the motel was pretty bad and I was hit with the thought that Alice must have come here to ask me about what this meant; what it all meant.

I didn't know what to tell her, so I forced myself to read the printed words. Oh how I wish I hadn't. I wish that I'd just stopped at feeling pissed and relieved about the pictures because the article cut me with a whole different kind of emotion – guilt. The article wasn't true; not really anyway. I wasn't cheating on Jacob because we didn't have a relationship that I could be unfaithful to and I hadn't even really done anything with Edward. Neither of us had really expressed any kind of desire to explore our relationship further. And yet...there was definitely an undercurrent of the both of us wanting just a little bit more than we should have. I felt it last night and it wasn't the first time if I was going to be completely honest with myself. And I felt guilty because Jacob was going to see this and he was going to ask me about it and I didn't know what the hell to tell him. If he asked me if anything was going on with Edward, could I tell him no without lying to him? I certainly didn't think so, but I didn't have a name for what was going on with Edward.

"Bella?" Alice's voice was a welcome interruption to my running circles around myself in my thoughts, though I had all but forgotten she was here.

I shook my head to clear it. "Sorry Alice," I said. "It's just...I can't believe...how did they get these pictures?"

Alice looked at me with a worried expression, though I wasn't sure whether she was worried about my state of mine or whether the article was real; probably a little of both. "Are you okay?"

"No," I told her honestly. I wasn't okay. I didn't know what I was in that moment, but okay was definitely not the word. "I'm not even sure...I can't...no, I'm not." I couldn't think coherently, let alone talk coherently.

"Um...look, I don't think I'm the only person you know that will have seen this or heard about this..." she trailed off and I knew she was talking about Jake. She didn't have to say his name...I could see in her eyes that she was talking about my ex-still-sort of boyfriend and her friend. I nodded to show that I understood. "I thought at first that this was why your cell was off, but obviously not. You'll probably have a thousand messages."

Oh shit! Well, at least now I knew why Alice had shown up at my door instead of just telling me this piece of news over a phone line. I had completely forgotten that I had turned my phone off last night so that I didn't get any unwelcome calls when all I wanted to do was go to sleep. I nodded my head to let her know that I was both hearing and understanding the words that were coming out of her mouth, but there were too many things going on in my head for me to reply. It was an odd sensation that I was currently experiencing; I felt completely numb, but because of the fact that I had too much to process. It was like my brain had literally short-circuited.

After a few minutes of silence where I was looking down at the article still in my hands, but not really seeing the printed words anymore, Alice spoke again. "Bella, look, I don't want to assume anything or accuse you of anything, but..." Alice paused and took a deep breath. I knew what she was going to ask, but I didn't want to make it easy for her to ask me because it certainly wasn't going to be easy for me to answer her. "I know you've said that nothing's going on and I believe you, but _could_ there be something going on Bella?" She was looking at me and begging me for something I couldn't really give her – the truth.

Because the truth was that yes...there _could_ be something between me and Edward and that was something Alice would hate to hear more than a lie.

The bigger truth; the deeper truth that I wasn't sure anyone was willing to accept was that maybe there already was.

* * *

A/N: Phew...longest chapter yet. I don't know whether there is a magazine called 'Famous' by the way, but that's what I decided to call mine. I was going to go with 'OK!', which I know is a magazine, but I thought that would be too...I don't know...just too. Anyway, the chapter is pretty long and I hope I didn't bore anyone.

Thank you to everyone that reads this story and an extra thank you to everyone who reviews; I appreciate reading them immensely.


	27. Chapter 27 Different Meanings

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 27: BPOV**

Denial: the act of asserting that something alleged is not true. I denied that anything could happen between me and Edward.

Lie: a false statement made with the intent to deceive. I told Alice a lie.

To accept: to regard as true or sound. Alice accepted what I had to say.

She left about ten minutes later, first assuring me that this was a stupid publication and no one who mattered would believe a word of what had been printed. I nodded and watched her leave, thanking her for telling me and feeling absolutely wretched for the fact that I had lied to her. I was giving Jasper a hard time for lying to her and I was doing exactly the same thing and the only reason was that I didn't want her to find out. This wasn't about Alice; I wasn't lying to protect her as Jasper had claimed that he had been doing. I was lying because it benefitted me. I didn't want Alice to hate me and I didn't want Alice to tell Jacob.

The thing was, Alice's words of comfort didn't really do their job at all because people had already started believing there was something going on _before_ this even came out. There was also the fact that although the implication of the article that I was cheating wasn't true, the actual quotes that they'd gotten weren't lies. It was all too easy to believe the damn article, especially with photographic evidence of just how much time Edward and I actually spent together. I was halfway to believing it all myself and I knew the god damn truth. Or maybe that was exactly why I was so close to believing it.

I closed my eyes and threw my head back onto the couch, wondering how my absolutely fantastic night could have given way to this truly horrendous day. I guessed that Edward either hadn't heard about this yet or he was too busy dealing with the consequences of it to come to see me just yet; just like I should be doing really. I pulled myself quite unwillingly from my sitting position and went to retrieve my cell phone from my bedroom. I didn't want to switch it on. I wanted to collapse onto my bed, sleep and maybe wake up when this had all blown over. Or maybe if I fell asleep, I would somehow wake up in a world where this hadn't happened. Stupid I know, but I was going on less than 4 hours of sleep and had just had a massive shock to the system, so sue me.

I had ten messages, but some of them had been left before I even switched my cell phone off last night. I guess in all the excitement and confusion of the night before I had just completely neglected to answer or check my phone.

Four of them were from my manager.

'_Bella, it's Renata. You need to call me back asap.'_

'_Bella whatever the hell you're doing I hope it's important because we have a situation and I need you to _**call me back**_!"_

"_Bella honestly what the hell is going on up there? This isn't just some courtesy call to see how you are. There is something I really think you should know."_

"_Bella if you don't call me back before I call you again, I'm getting on a plane to New York to talk to you!"_

The last message from her had been left only an hour ago so hopefully she wasn't currently on a plane on the way over. I found her number quickly, deciding that the last thing I needed was Renata actually showing up on my doorstep. It was 5 in the morning in LA, but considering she'd been phoning me all throughout the night, I thought it was probably safe to assume that Renata was still awake.

"About fucking time!" she answered, not even bothering with formalities or waiting for the phone to do a full ring before she started cursing.

"Good morning to you too Ren," I greeted. Renata had been my manager for years; she was a friend of parents' way before she became my manager and I didn't really have the same image of her in my head as everyone else in the industry did.

"Don't get cute with me just because I've known you since you were in diapers," she snapped. "Did you lose your god damn phone?"

"No, but I know what you were calling about now so no need to warn me or anything."

Renata chuckled. "This was never about warning you Bella," she said. "It's hard to believe that you've been in this business for years sometimes."

I didn't know what the hell to say to that. If the numerous phone calls, the threat of coming over and the excessive cursing weren't about trying to warn me about this shit storm then what was it about?

"I need to know how long this has been going on and whether or not you were smart enough to at least split up with Jacob first?"

"What?!" I don't know what I expected her to say, but it didn't even cross my mind that Renata, of all people, would believe the story. She'd known me forever and she knew me with Jake. Not that I really blamed her; wasn't I just thinking that _I_ almost believed it.

"I need to know what I can say truthfully and what I'll have to avoid like the plague when everyone in this town finally wakes the fuck up and starts calling me and the agency about this." Renata wasn't speaking to me like someone she'd known for years; she was talking to me as if I was any other client and whilst a part of me resented that right now, I understood that she had to do her job; this was what she was good at.

"Nothing's going on Ren," I said, the lie easier to say to someone who wasn't looking at me like if I answered them any other way, it would break them. "And even if it was, I'm not cheating on anyone. Jacob and I are taking a small break from each other."

"Because of Edward?"

"No, not because of Edward, but not for a reason I want to publicise so don't even mention that; that was just for your ears, not the general press."

Renata paused for a second and I knew she was going to press the matter. "Bella you know that these pictures are very..."

Yeah, I knew. I knew the pictures were extremely suggestive and whoever had taken them had gotten some pretty good fucking shots of moments that shouldn't have been witnessed by anyone other than Edward and I.

"The pictures are taken out of context Ren," I assured her. "We do spend a lot of time together, but there's an innocent story behind all of them. Like the one on the front cover, for instance, we weren't alone. We were having dinner with his brother and his brother's fiancé."

Renata snorted. "Sweetheart that's not a better story than if you _were_ alone together." There was a pause and I could hear her tapping away on a keyboard of some sort. I felt a little guilty that all this shit was causing her to be working at 5 in the morning when any sane person should have been asleep. "Listen," she said after the tapping had stopped. "Paul and your publicist have been calling you and they've called me so after you hang up with me, you better call the two of them."

"I have a publicist?" I had not known this little detail.

Renata laughed at me and gave me the details of the person who was supposed to be taking care of my public image. I couldn't help but think that they obviously hadn't been doing a very good job if a) I didn't even know anything about them and b) they hadn't managed to pre-empt this story, which made me sound like a cheating whore. When I hung up with my manager, I did not immediately call Paul, but instead went to get myself a cup of coffee. What I really wanted was a glass of wine or something, but I was only 19 and I didn't think now was the time to start developing an alcohol dependency problem. Caffeine would have to be sufficient to drive away the headache that had been slowly beginning to build as soon as Alice showed up at my door.

The conversation with Paul wasn't too bad, but just like Renata, he had taken the core of the article as truth, wanting to know whether I had given any thoughts to what could happen with the film if things didn't work out. As a matter of fact, I hadn't really, not until he said it. I hadn't really thought of anything beyond what would happen should I just give into whatever was happening with Edward and I. I didn't think about the consequences of a relationship because there was no relationship yet; not a romantic one anyway. People were giving me so much to think about when I hadn't even come to grips with the fact that for the first time since I was 15, I could see myself with someone that wasn't Jacob. However, apparently no one was going to give me any time to recover from that bombshell that I'd just allowed myself to acknowledge about 2 days ago.

My publicist, Helene, was _not_ pleased with me. Even though I didn't know who the hell she was until this morning, she seemed to know an awful _lot_ about me; maybe she wasn't as bad at her job as I thought.

"If you'd given me this story a week ago, I could have controlled how this leaked out," she scolded. "Now all we're doing is reacting to the story that's already out there. There's no control."

I heaved out a huge sigh; this would be the fourth time in about thirty minutes that I would be denying the story and I was already damn tired of it. "It's not true," I said in a very lack-lustre sort of voice.

"I hope that's not the denial you're going to be going with to the public," Helene continued. "Just say no comment and let me handle everything else. I just need to know the full story here Bella."

I heaved a slightly exaggerated sigh. "There's no story Helene," I reiterated. "The article is completely false. I'm not cheating on my boyfriend and Edward and I are not having a torrid affair."

It took Helene a few minutes to understand what I was actually saying to her, but when she did her response was to plan how to get the truth out there instead of the falsehoods being claimed right now. She talked about how she and 'her team' were going to handle the situation, only stopping every two minutes or so to consult on whether or not I was in agreement with the plan. All in all, she seemed to be very good at her job and the only thing I amended was the mention of Jake. I didn't tell Helene anything specific about Jacob and I because even though she was working for me essentially, I didn't know this woman and I was not the type of person to share things with strangers. I merely told her that any denial or counter story or whatever the hell was being released shouldn't mention Jacob at all; it was bad enough that he was dragged into the article itself.

The final message on my answering machine was the one I didn't want to hear because it was the one I was least prepared to deal with. Jacob had called and although he didn't sound angry, accusatory or even suspicious, there was still something in the 14 words he'd spoken that made me want to pretend that I hadn't gotten the call. I was a fucking coward; I knew it and I hated myself for it, but not only was I completely unsure what Jacob would say, I didn't have the slightest idea of how I would answer any questions he could possibly have. I wasn't going to lie to Jacob like I had to Alice; there was something even more wrong about that; but I wasn't exactly going to tell him that maybe I wanted to break up for good because I was having some pretty fucking confusing feelings for my co-star. I didn't want Edward to be the reason that Jake and I _really_ ended things, but if he asked me about it then I knew Edward would be.

I wasn't even sure that I did permanently want to end my relationship with Jake. I could acknowledge that something wasn't right between Jake and I and it didn't have anything to do with Edward at all or the movie that I was doing. Well, not really anyway. Maybe both the film and Edward had been the catalyst for my really noticing that there was something not right about my relationship with Jacob. But it wasn't as if the relationship had changed; Jake hadn't changed; _we_ hadn't changed. Was it me then? Had I changed? Had I changed so much that I no longer fit into the relationship I had been in for the past three and a half years? Was it my fault?

I gathered up the dregs of my mind and my courage and pressed the first speed dial on my cell. Jacob answered on the third ring.

"Bella," he greeted. He seemed relieved.

God, I wanted to get off the damn phone already even though this was the first time since we parted about two weeks ago that we'd spoken. Was it only that long ago that Jake and I decided to take time away from each other? It certainly seemed a lot longer. "Hey Jake," I replied. "I, er...I just got your message."

"Yeah," Jake said. "I kinda figured."

"Look Jake," I started, but he cut me off before I could continue.

"I know it's not true," he stated, his voice a lot more firm than it had been. "I know what magazines are like. I just wanted you to know that you don't have to worry about my reaction."

Great. Jacob was being far more understanding and sweet than I had expected. I thought I would at least have had to assure him that it wasn't true just once for him to completely disregard the story. Well, at least I didn't have to try and manoeuvre my way around an explanation for why the pictures – which were all real – looked so intimate and private. The relief I felt that he wasn't asking for an explanation or a denial from me was competing with the enormous amount of guilt that washed over me at the fact that I was deceiving this amazingly sweet man. It was true that I wasn't having an affair with Edward behind Jake's back, but it was bad enough that I wanted to see what it would be like to be with Edward whilst at the same time not being sure whether I really wanted to say goodbye to my relationship with Jacob.

"I'm really sorry Jacob," I said into the phone. I was apologising for so many things, but when he asked, I told him it was because I was sorry he had to see those pictures and read something like that, even if the words weren't true.

I tried to think about what I would have felt like had I seen pictures of Jacob looking intimate with an attractive female co-star and the only answer I could come up with was surprise. I would be surprised as hell if I saw Jacob with someone else because the guy would absolutely never cheat on me; he just doesn't have it in him to hurt me – or anyone for that matter. Would I be absolutely devastated? Would I feel betrayed and upset that he would be in those situations with someone that wasn't me? I didn't know. I didn't know if I would feel like my heart was being torn out of my chest because I honestly couldn't see Jake ever being caught in this kind of position. I was beginning to see how unbalanced our relationship really was as Jacob began to explain at first that the pictures made him feel a little sick until he realised that I would never do that to him; to anyone.

I ended the conversation as quickly as I could, using the excuse that I needed to talk to my manager and publicist about the entire mess, pretending that he was the first person I had talked to about this. By the time I pressed the red 'end' button, I felt about two inches tall. I no longer knew what the hell I was doing. I felt like I was cheating on my boyfriend even though I didn't technically have a boyfriend and I wasn't technically doing anything with Edward. Thank goodness Edward and I hadn't actually kissed earlier this morning because the only way I could talk to Jacob just then was by reassuring myself that nothing had actually happened; that would not have been the case had my lips come into contact with Edward's.

I was banging on Edward's door much like Alice had been on mine not twenty minutes after I hung up with Jake, impatient to know whether he had seen the magazine and what his reaction to it had been. I had wanted to see him almost as soon as Alice had shown me the magazine, but I didn't think telling her to go away so that I could go and freak out about it with Edward would have gone over too well.

"Go away," I heard Edward's voice call out. Aside from sounding frustrated, his voice was still rough with sleep. I felt a little guilty interrupting his few hours of rest with this news, but it was important and I had a feeling he'd rather hear it from me anyway.

"Edward," I called out, looking around me for signs that someone was listening to this exchange; or worse yet that someone was taking a picture of this. "It's me, Bella. Let me in."

I could hear a muffled groan through the door followed by footsteps, getting louder and coming ever closer. Suddenly Edward's face was in front of me and he was asking me what was wrong before I even got a word out of my mouth. I didn't want him to have a freak out in a public forum with the knowledge that there were people in this apartment block that had spoken to a reporter about us. Instead of responding to alleviate his concern, I walked inside the apartment, into the living room area and waited a few moments for Edward to follow me.

As soon as the door was closed and he was within easy hearing distance of me, I asked whether or not he had seen 'Famous' this morning, knowing that the answer would probably not be in the affirmative seeing as the couch was still made up like a bed. Edward's brow furrowed as he shook his head, confusion clear on his face.

"Should I have?"

Yes, yes he should have. Someone should have called him this morning to tell him about this mess. I was kind of surprised that someone from his management team hadn't yet informed him of this extremely unpleasant development. I had no words that would truly convey why he should have read this gossip rag this morning of all days, so I just presented him with the magazine in a similar manner to how Alice had broken the news to me.

I could tell by Edward's expression exactly when he had processed what he was seeing because his jaw dropped and his eyes widened so much, I was pretty sure I would be able to see the structures around the eyeball if I cared to look carefully enough. Seeing his eyes fly from the picture to the words and back to the picture again made me relive the exact moment I had been doing the same thing, struggling to remember when such a picture could have been taken. Edward finally looked up at me and I knew that he saw the same confusion and panic in my eyes that I could easily pick out in his. We only looked at each other for a fraction of a second before his eyes dropped back down to the picture and the sensationalist heading that went with it.

I stayed with Edward as he discovered that the picture and headline were not the worst of what the magazine had to offer. His reaction was almost identical to mine: disbelief, astonishment, anger, confusion, panic and then back to disbelief. The article did not make Edward sound great, painting him as the older, less established actor intent on seducing his young co-star to make waves in the Hollywood scene. Even if people reading the article didn't jump on that train of thought straight away, he was still going to be seen as someone who went after a younger woman who was already in a relationship. Yes, the article was making me out to be a cheater, but it was also claiming that Edward was the sort of person that would facilitate cheating – and he just wasn't. Edward had too strong a moral fibre to pursue a relationship with someone who was obviously in a relationship and it irritated me beyond belief that someone who didn't know him would spread such lies about him.

After a few minutes where I was sure his mind was trying to pull pieces of itself together after it had been blown to bits, Edward and I started to talk about how I found out, which led to conversations about both Alice and Jacob – two people I was rather uncomfortable talking to Edward about at the best of times, never mind when it related to this magazine article and the weird not-quite platonic friendship we were in. I was only half-joking when I told him that Alice wouldn't once again come around and hit him for absolutely no reason. I knew she wouldn't, but that was based on the fact that I had denied a possibility of my friendship with Edward ever becoming more; it was because I had lied.

He didn't actually ask about Jacob, but for some reason, I felt like I should tell him anyway, whether either of us really wanted me to or not. I told him how utterly terrible I felt when having the conversation with Jacob, though I didn't divulge _all_ the reasons. Edward reassured me that my delayed thoughts of my sort of ex-boyfriend were perfectly reasonable considering the shock that I must have been in upon reading the article. I wanted to believe him, to find comfort in his words, but the fact that I had wanted to come to him immediately without even first thinking of Jacob ensured me that I should have been feeling like the world's biggest bitch.

We hadn't been talking for too long before commiserating each other about the article gave way to fond reminiscing about the night before. Neither of us mentioned the incident at the end of the night though, where we were literally millimetres apart and a fraction of a second from kissing. Some part of me wanted to know what Edward thought about the almost intimate moment we had shared, but I knew I would never ask. I knew that this thing with Edward wasn't one-sided, but I didn't have enough courage to actually ask him outright what the fuck was going on with the two of us lately.

Rosalie walked out of what was technically Edward's bedroom, but she had spent more time sleeping in, just as Edward and I were laughing about some insane story he had been told last night. As she walked out, you could tell she'd literally just gotten out of bed after probably a late night and yet she looked like she could have just come from a fucking photo shoot. Honestly, some people had all the luck in the world. I didn't have a problem with the way I looked; I knew I was fairly attractive on a day to day basis and when I dressed up, I was downright hot, but Rosalie Hale was one of those annoyingly perfect women who looked red-carpet ready at whenever and wherever. She naturally had the kind of look that people in the industry spent several hundred thousand dollars on.

"What the hell are you two so happy about this early in the morning?" she asked, sitting down on the chair to Edward's right.

"It's nearly 10 Rose," Edward replied. "That's hardly early."

Rosalie looked at both of us and grinned. "It is when you don't get back until after half past two in the morning Edward." She chuckled at Edward's noise of surprise. "Imagine how worried I was when I got back after my fantastic date to find that my best friend wasn't home yet." Rosalie's eyes drifted to me for longer than necessary, ensuring that neither Edward nor I missed the implication beneath her words. "Just what time did you make it back Ed?"

"After you did obviously Rose," Edward answered. "So your date went well?" He was so obviously trying to change the subject that even I couldn't blame Rosalie for the look she shot him. She opened her mouth to say something, but then her eyes locked in on the magazine still in Edward's hands and she grabbed it before either Edward or I could react.

"Bloody hell!" Rosalie exclaimed, her eyes quickly scanning the lines of the article and taking in the photographs that went with it. After the shock had worn away, the next emotion Rosalie displayed was mirth. She burst out laughing and kept on doing so for about five minutes whilst Edward apologised to me profusely for his best friend's behaviour.

It took Rose a further 5 minutes before she had calmed down enough to be able to utter full sentences again. "This article is completely fucking hilarious," she stated, as if we didn't already know her opinion on the matter.

"Well I'm glad you find it so amusing Rosalie," Edward said, his voice showing his obvious irritation.

I saw the blonde look over at me and roll her eyes at the mood her best friend was in, as if I would agree with her view on the matter instead; yeah right. Just like Edward, I didn't think this was a laughing matter at all and as the shock started to wear off, the absolute horror that someone could invade my privacy in this manner was beginning to sink in. Whilst the pictures that had been taken were all in public places, they weren't just random shots. Someone had to have been following Edward and I to get these particular moments of the two of us together and _that_ was what was disturbing about it.

I'd never had too many problems with the press because I liked to keep my life private and I didn't do the whole Hollywood scene; never really had and only ever wanted to at one point in my life. I'd been on some pretty big movies and I'd done a few press interviews, but there had never been photographers following me around and I'd never seen my face on the front cover of some gossip rag. Well, until this morning anyway. I'd led a pretty boring life by Hollywood standards; I'd been with the same guy for years and never cheated, I didn't like going out to any of the so-called 'hotspots' in LA, I didn't like to take pictures of myself naked and have them 'accidentally leaked' to the press and I didn't have a not so secret drug addiction that people feared would eventually end my life. All in all, I was just a normal girl doing a job that I loved and that was boring as hell for tabloids and the gossiping press.

It disturbed me to no end that my life was now being displayed and degraded in the manner that it had been in this magazine. I didn't like reading lies about myself and I hated the knowledge that there were people out there who didn't know me and yet were going to make judgements about me based solely on what they read in this magazine. Rationally, I knew it didn't matter what people I had never met – and would never meet – thought about me, but it was hard to not think about it when a magazine basically calls you a cheating whore. I was 19 for god's sake; I had enough issues about myself without having to add other people's opinion of me too into the mix.

I listened to Rose and Edward bicker a bit more about the whole thing before I excused myself and left, assuring both of them that I hadn't taken offence to anything Rosalie had said or not said. Edward didn't seem to believe me, which he made quite clear as he walked me to the door and away from his best friend.

"Really Edward, it has nothing to do with Rose," I repeated. "I just...I guess I'm annoyed and freaked out." I didn't have to tell him why because I knew that he understood.

Edward nodded. "It's fucking weird knowing that someone's probably been following us right?"

I made a noise of agreement and for a moment all we did was look at each other, trying to find comfort in the other when everything around us was becoming too crazy to put into words. I looked into Edward's green eyes and found myself smiling despite the mess that had exploded in the middle of everything this morning and despite the feeling like my life was going down a road I had never wanted it to. Everything else may be completely messed up and my mind may have been the most messed up of all, but when I was with Edward in moments like this, there was a clarity that blew everything else away. Sometimes I felt like Edward knew me in a way that perhaps I could never really know myself and I have to say that when you're worried about what everyone will think of you, the feeling that there is someone who gets who you are is comforting to a degree I couldn't even grasp myself. I just hope I offered him the same kind of relief.

Edward reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ears, something so intimate that it had me ducking my head and blushing in a way that I hadn't done since I was about 14. I would have been laughing at myself if I had been an observer of this reaction, but instead all I could do was relish the calm of his touch.

"It'll be alright Bella," he assured me. "We haven't done anything wrong and eventually these people will see that and just move on."

I nodded as Edward dropped his hand. I wanted to believe that this was a one-time incident, but I couldn't fully agree with him that we hadn't done anything wrong. Edward may not have done anything wrong at all, but I'd done plenty wrong and the worst part of it all was that at the end of the day, I didn't _really_ regret any of it.

*

I was fidgeting and I knew it. I was getting odd stares from people who were annoyed with me for moving too much and too often, but I was uncomfortable and this was what happened when I was in that state. It was a reflex reaction of sorts. I couldn't stay still when I was nervous or when I felt completely out of my element and right now, I felt those two things acutely. I was in the reception area of ultra exclusive 'club' waiting for Esme to show up and save me from the frankly rude staring being directed at me by people in the same room – by the receptionist even. A huge part of me wanted to tell everyone to just mind their own fucking business, but these were not the sort of people you did that to and there was definitely a strong intimidation factor working to keep my mouth shut and my eyes down.

Esme had called me Saturday evening and invited me to have lunch with her today so that we could get to talk a little more seeing as she'd put so much information on me at dinner that I lost all mental faculties. Well, she didn't exactly put it that way, but that's what I'd been thinking. We were meeting here because she had been here all morning finalising some details of the reception to be held in some part of this extravagant building less than a week away. I was a little nervous about meeting her alone, but I absolutely had questions to ask her this time and with filming beginning tomorrow, this was going to be my last opportunity to get a real view of the character that I would be becoming.

"Bella," Esme greeted, smiling at me from across the barrier of several tables and chairs. "I'm so sorry that I kept you waiting."

I stood from my seat and found myself being enveloped in a hug by the woman I'd only actually met twice. "It's no problem," I said when she released me. "I've only been here five minutes."

"Still, it must have been horrible sitting here and getting judgement passed on you by complete strangers," she said knowingly and I couldn't help but smile in agreement. She obviously knew what people here were like and had probably had first-hand experience of the too obvious glances thrown in her direction before too loud whispering began. Though looking at Esme and having been around her before, I couldn't imagine what people here could have had to say about her; the woman was elegance and class brought to life.

She started leading me out of the reception area and into a much smaller room further down a rather impressive hallway with old pictures of some very rich-looking men and women. "We're going to be having lunch in a private room if that's okay with you."

I nodded my assent, my eyes travelling over the heavy wooden panelling and the gorgeous ceiling design of the room that she had led us into. There were very few people there and all of them seemed too engrossed by their own conversations to be paying any attention to us. Esme sat down at a table by a window that seemed to overlook some part of the extensive grounds that this building was surrounded by, far away from everyone else. As soon as I had taken a seat, a waitress appeared seemingly out of nowhere to offer us a drink and a menu. Well, service was sure as hell fantastic.

"I'm glad you could come and meet me for lunch Bella," Esme said after ordering a bottle of wine and some sparkling water for the both of us. I actually hated sparkling water, but I didn't want to offend her and I figured it wouldn't kill me to have sparkling water just this once.

"I'm glad you invited me," I replied honestly.

"I felt so guilty putting all that information on you the last time we met," Esme started and I was about to interrupt her to tell her that she shouldn't, but she had carried on before I could even open my mouth. "So I thought now would be a good time for the two of us to really talk about anything you might want to talk about."

And so began our conversation about the cousin that Esme had lost far too soon and loved a hell of a lot. I only actually managed to ask a few questions, but Esme had recounted such a great deal of information for every question that she answered, I didn't need to ask any more to feel like I had gotten an insight into the enigma that was Kristen. It was heart-breaking to hear Esme talk about Kristen on so many different levels. For one, it was clear that the kind woman in front of me missed her cousin a lot. They had been very close it seemed, though they were rather different from each other. She expanded on things I had already found out about the woman and told me pieces of information that never made it out into the general public.

"Before she met him she was the very definition of society wild child," Esme recounted. "Kris didn't exactly like this life, but it was all she knew and for years she absolutely revelled in it. She liked being the girl that everyone adored for one reason or another and she liked that her name alone could open doors that would have remained shut for everyone else."

Ah, yes. Before she had even turned 16, Kristen Stewart had been known to partake in some pretty controversial things, though there were never any photographs of course. There were rumours that she had once had a nasty drug habit, but Esme never mentioned this and I didn't feel it was appropriate to ask seeing as she was already sharing quite personal memories with me.

"And then she met him and it was as if whatever she'd been looking for all that time, or whatever she didn't like in herself all vanished."

"It really was that intense then?" I asked Esme, voicing aloud the question that I'd asked myself several times over since getting the script. "The two of them; it really was like it's written?"

Esme sipped her white wine thoughtfully before answering me. "Yes and no," she said. "I mean, yeah they were absolutely insane about each other. It was like when she met him, everything fell into place for her and that was before they even realised they were in love with each other. It was very...there was such..." Esme broke off and sighed. "I don't know if I can explain it properly Bella because I've never been in the same place that they were in. I mean I absolutely adore Carlisle and I am very much in love with him, but it's not the same as what they had. I don't know if I can put into words exactly what it was having never felt like that." She stopped again and furrowed her eyebrows in thought, frustrated at the fact that she couldn't find the words to describe what had transpired between these two people.

"It transcended the conventional definition of love," Esme finally said. "It was like they were obsessed with each other and at times it wasn't healthy for them. Well, obviously in the end it wasn't healthy for them because I'm the one telling you this story instead of her." Esme's voice cracked at the end, but she took a deep breath and carried on as if nothing had happened.

"From the very beginning, they were absolutely fascinated with each other. They spent an extraordinary amount of time together in the first few days of meeting, but at the time it just seemed like they were two people who enjoyed each other's company. I mean he was an attractive guy who just happened to be the lead singer of a band. It just seemed like she was attracted to that part of him like everyone else was. And then I went back home and she went to London and the rest, as they say, is history."

"She actually went to London then?" I asked, surprised that the script was so close to the reality of the situation. I didn't know how much Esme knew about the movie, but I presumed Edward or Carlisle must have told her some things.

Esme nodded. "Yeah, but she went for a lot longer than a few days. She literally stayed with him until he finished touring England. Her parents went crazy when they got back from Australia and she still wasn't back."

"How long did she actually stay?" In the movie she stays for four days, just enough time for them to explore the growing attachment and attraction to each other that they had.

Esme smiled. "About 6 weeks," she confessed and my jaw dropped. "She missed the start of the school year back home and it took a hefty donation from my aunt and uncle to get her back in when she finally came back."

"Is that how they found out about the two of them?" In the film, Kristen's parents didn't find out about the relationship until two years into it, but they had obviously changed things.

Esme shook her head. "No, they didn't find out until she told them actually. It wasn't exactly unusual for my cousin to be AWOL in a different country. The winter before, she flew to Fiji for four weeks just because was fed up with New York weather."

I smiled as she chuckled at the memory of some of the escapades her cousin had gotten into. Kristen had seemed like the impetuous adventurer out of the two and it was hard to miss the way that Esme admired her cousin. It was surreal seeing someone that I was playing from the eyes of someone that loved them very much. It made me that much more determined to bring Kristen to life in the right way; to do her story justice. It was pretty obvious that Kristen's relationship with Robert, though obviously a huge part of her life and the thing that defined her in the eyes of so many, did not encompass the whole person. The part of Kristen that Esme knew belonged to no one but herself and that was the part that I didn't want to get lost even if the film we were making was about a relationship that eventually ended in her death.

After hearing more about her cousin and the way that he life had completely shifted because of Robert, I asked Esme the question I had been dying to ask since I first found out about her. "Do you hate him?" I questioned after our final plates had been taken away. "Do you resent him for taking her away?"

Esme looked at me for a few moments, her eyes staring straight into mine, as if she was wondering whether or not I really wanted to hear what she had to say. Eventually she looked away and out of the window in front of us. "I did," she admitted after a few more seconds of contemplative silence where I didn't know whether I had finally asked a question she did not want to answer. "For a long time after she died, I loathed him. I blamed him. If she'd never met him then she would have been happy enough in her life to just live it. She would never have known the difference." Esme sighed and then looked back at me, her hazel eyes a deep well of troubled emotion. "Then I realised she would never have known the difference. The reason Kris wasn't happy in the life that her parents forced her to live was because she knew what truly waited for her out there; where she truly belonged. She was so astoundingly happy with him and it was real. What they had was the most real thing and I couldn't begrudge her that." There were tears in Esme's eyes and I felt my own watering just hearing her talk.

"She loved him; loved him obsessively and sometimes a little irrationally, but she loved him completely and she was loved in the same way in return. How could I hate him when he was the only thing that made her happy? When he was the one that gave her the safety to be herself? I couldn't hate him for loving her when it was all she'd ever wanted."

If I thought this story was absolutely heart-wrenching before, I was completely broken by it now. Broken and yet oddly...hopeful? Yeah, that was probably the right word to describe it. Whilst it was true that there was a darkness to this tale that kept it from having the happily ever after both the characters obviously longed for, there was definitely a message of hope somewhere in there that Esme had obviously seen. In an age where nothing is permanent and where true love is nothing more than a tag line for a movie, Kristen and Rob's story showed that when you find something true and real, nothing else can come close and nothing else matters. Of course Esme was crushed by her cousin's untimely death, but knowing that she'd had something in her life that made that life worth living was something Esme could not hate. My admiration for the woman in front of me increased exponentially, as did my admiration for the loved on she was remembering.

It was beautiful and poignant and it sure as hell put a lot of things into perspective.

*

**EPOV**

"I should probably go," Bella said in the middle of mine and Rosalie's childish bickering. She was standing before I could even finish my sentence and I looked over at Rosalie who was absorbed in the magazine article once more.

"I'll see you out," I said, rising with her. We walked to the door, mostly out of ear shot of my soon to be ex-best friend before I spoke again. "I am so sorry about her Bella. Obviously she lacks the part of the brain that tells you what not to say in certain situations." This had been demonstrated on more than once occasion, unfortunately enough.

"I'm not leaving because of her," Bella assured me, opening the door and walking into the hallway.

Call me paranoid, but the fact that we'd been having a good conversation before Rosalie came out and started making light of a rather awkward and serious development and suddenly Bella had to leave made me a little sceptical of her statement. I raised my eyebrow at her and she smiled and repeated once more that it had nothing to do with my best friend.

Bella bit her lip and looked around her. "I just...I guess I'm annoyed and freaked out," she confessed with a shrug.

Yeah. And I knew exactly why. The article was one thing; someone had obviously been trying to impress their employers by handing them this story. After all, sex sells right? There were also obviously people out there who got off in seeing their words in print; who were excited at the prospect of being part of something 'scandalous'. However, the pictures were a completely different matter. There was obviously at least one person out there following Bella and I when we weren't at home or at work and that was fucking strange. There was no way that some of these pictures were taken by some random passer-by who just happened to recognise us. These pictures were taken by a professional and they were calculated shots. After all, Bella and I had been alone for possibly five minutes the entire time we had dinner with Carlisle and Esme and yet that was the five minutes that they actually took a picture? She had kissed my cheek for a maximum of 2 seconds and yet they got the exact moment when her lips made contact with my skin? No, these pictures did not happen by coincidence; someone was following us and that made me both pissed off and very paranoid all of a sudden.

"It's fucking weird to know that someone is following us right?"

Bella made a small noise of accord, nodding her head as she looked up at me. I don't know how long we stood looking at each other for, but I could see everything I was feeling being reflected back at me from Bella's soft, inviting brown eyes and it wasn't just about the article. I had been trying so hard to think of a way that I could show Bella that I wanted to explore just how far our quasi-friendship could go that I didn't see she may have been doing exactly the same thing. Certainly Bella and I had gotten a lot tactile towards each other in recent weeks and the way she was smiling at me now prevented every thought in my head from being acknowledged except for the ones that were directly related to her. Before I could stop myself, I reached out and tucked a strand of her chocolate hair back behind her ears. It wasn't a thought out action, but I think Bella may have gotten the feeling behind the act because she broke our gaze to look down, blushing all the while.

It made me chuckle on the inside that I could repeatedly get this amazingly strong and guarded girl to blush like this; it made me a little proud of myself. Sometimes I would think that Bella could be such a different person from who I thought she was a minute ago, but in reality, they were all her. She was such a complex person, with so many layers and so many things going on that I couldn't help but want to be the person that understood her in her entirety; a feat I didn't think she had achieved. I let my hand linger a fraction too long and I knew she noticed, but she didn't say anything and maybe that told me everything I needed to know.

"It'll be alright Bella," I told her, though I wasn't just talking about the article or the invasion of privacy. I had to convince the both of us that whatever was going on with our relationship would be okay in the end. "We haven't done anything wrong and eventually these people will see that and just move on."

Technically my words weren't a lie, but I knew that I had done something wrong. Even when Bella had definitely been with Jacob, I wanted her on some level. I didn't want to acknowledge that I wanted her, but I think I probably felt something for her from the moment we went into that audition scene together. I was doing something wrong now hoping that she would make the final break with Jacob so that she could be free to explore our undeniable mutual attraction. Nothing physical had happened, though there had been a couple of close calls, but I was working to make Bella see what we could be together and _that_ in itself was wrong because I was adding a complication to her already chaotic life.

I shut the door when she finally left and was surprised to come face to face with Rosalie, who was standing just in front of me with a very knowing look on her face. I fought the urge to roll my eyes because it was fucking amazing that as well as having the inability to stop whatever thought was in her head from coming out of her, Rosalie had the uncanny ability to know exactly how much shit I was in.

"Jesus Christ Ed," she said simply.

I looked at her, unable and unwilling to hide what I already knew that she knew; I was in far too deep with this already and I still didn't know what the hell I was doing.

*

Carlisle's bachelor party was not going to be the normal run of the mill poker night followed by a trip to a strip club and ending in my older brother being tied naked to a post of some description. Instead, we were going back to Chicago where we had a box at Wrigley Field waiting for us and fifteen of Carlisle's closest male friends. We were going to watch the game in style and then run amok through the streets where we'd grown up. Both Carlisle and I had been lifelong Cubs' fans, so the prospect of going back to watch a home game when the team was doing pretty well was more than a little exciting. That was the reason that Jasper, Carlisle and I were sitting on a plane with two of Carlisle's friends thirty minutes into our flight to the mid-west.

I was sitting next to Jasper, who I knew was absolutely bursting to ask me about the magazine article that he had tried to inform me about this morning, but I had yet to afford him an opportunity to talk to me about it. For instance, right now, I was sitting with my eyes closed and ear phones in my ear listening to music and pretending I didn't know how anxious he was to just ask me. I figured that it served him right for keeping whatever the hell he was keeping from everyone and even though I knew I was being petty, I couldn't help but enjoy this shoe on the other foot moment. Finally Jasper's patience wore out and he tugged the ear phones out and told me that he knew I wasn't actually asleep.

"Are you ever going to tell me what finally happened when you saw that magazine?" he asked when I opened my eyes.

"Anyone would think you weren't comfortable with people hiding things from you Jazz," I quipped.

Jasper's jaw tensed and his eyes hardened, but he shook it off quickly enough, refusing to be dragged down a serious topic of conversation that he had been avoiding for what seemed like a lot longer than I had actually known him.

"Cut the bullshit Edward," he said firmly. "Did you see the magazine or not?"

I sighed heavily. "Yeah I did. Bella came to see me five minutes after I got off the phone with you."

"Alice went over to her apartment as soon as we saw it on the stands," Jasper informed me. "We couldn't believe it when we saw the cover. I was convinced I was seeing things until I read the article and saw your name in black and white."

"I'm rather surprised your girlfriend didn't beat down my door actually," I confessed, ignoring Jasper's eye roll. He had tried to tell me over and over again about how Alice and I would get along famously if we could overcome this 'Bella issue' as he had come to refer to it as.

"She kind of wanted to," he admitted sheepishly after I continued to just stare at him. "I convinced her that it would not be the best course of action and that it would only result in Bella being pissed."

So, I was right, I did have Jasper to thank for my lack of painful red marks this morning. "I guess 'thanks' is in order then," I admitted grudgingly. "Though your girlfriend really does need to learn not to jump to conclusions."

Jasper snorted. "It wasn't that much of a jump considering the pictures that were shown Ed," he pointed out. "It's not exactly as if the two of you are maintaining a professional distance in those shots."

He was right; I knew he was right and those moments weren't even the most suggestive ones they could have captured – with the possible exception of the one outside the motel. If they'd gotten me coming out of Bella's apartment in the mornings or if they'd managed to snap a picture of us from very early this morning, I doubted that even Jasper could have prevented Alice from causing me more bodily harm.

"Those pictures are literally about a fraction of a second of our normal interaction Jasper," I pointed out. "They've displayed all the ones that support the story, but it's not as if Bella and I go around being like this all the time."

"Yeah, but it's not like you can sit there and tell me you don't want to be."

Touché. Tou-fucking-ché.

I glared at him before pointedly putting my earphones back in place and ignored him for the rest of the flight, hating the knowing smirk on his face.

*

The last time I'd been to a baseball game had been in New York a year ago. Claire and I had gone to see the Yankees against the Orioles and it had been fun as usual, but nothing beat coming to Wrigley Field to see the Cubs play. Carlisle and I shared the same memories of coming here when we were younger and being amazed by its vastness and electrified by the atmosphere on game nights. When the Cubs were in town, it wasn't just the baseball stadium that buzzed with excitement, but the entire area. People crowded the bars around the place and stood on the streets talking loudly to friends and strangers alike. This had been one of my favourite places growing up, but as I got older memories of it became tainted with my resentment of my father.

I don't know whether my brother ever had the same kind of problem, but I didn't think so. Carlisle's relationship with our Dad had been very different to mine and though my brother hated what he'd done as much as I did, he didn't hate him. I think a huge part of the reason I hadn't been back to Chicago for a very long time was because as many good memories it had for me, it held just as many bad and painful ones. For a long time, I couldn't even think about the place without being brought back to some of the worst times in my life. I guess I needed to leave as much as Rosalie had needed to get away from England.

However, being back tonight with my brother, his friends and Jasper kind of helped to extinguish some of the less than pleasant memories of this place. Or rather the fun we were having tonight was balancing out some of the nightmare days I'd had in the city. I hadn't even set foot in Illinois for nearly four years, let alone Chicago and it was with some trepidation that I did tonight. Carlisle and I had discussed coming back here at length before the plans were set in stone and even though he was trying to be sensitive to my feelings about our childhood home, I could tell that deep down this was the only place Carlisle wanted to be for this night. I was glad that I came back; glad that I faced the memories even thinking about Chicago always brought up because it helped solidify in my mind that I wasn't in that place now. I wasn't the helpless teenager that felt like his mother was disappearing before his very eyes. I wasn't the young boy that wondered what he could do to get his father to finally take notice of him. All of us – Carlisle, my Mom and I – had all come a long way since we were all here and I guess being reminded of how it used to be made me feel lucky for how everything was now. That, perhaps, was the reason that Carlisle wanted to be here.

The game had long ago finished and we were now on the other side of the city in a hotel room that overlooked Lake Michigan. We had hired a suite and the others in the party were all inside having fun with some people we had met during the game. Music was playing quite loudly and alcohol was flowing freely, but I had stepped out a couple of minutes ago to enjoy the balmy night air and the view of the city that I had once called my home.

"As best man, aren't you supposed to be in there trying to get someone to take their clothes off?" my brother's voice sounded from behind me.

I turned around chuckling. "I think Alistair probably has that covered."

"I doubt that it was Alastair's clothes people wanted to see off though," my brother quipped.

Alastair and Carlisle had attended both undergrad and med school together and in all that time, my brother swears that his friend had never quite outgrown the frat boy within him. I didn't have any friends that I had known for as long as Carlisle had known some of his and I couldn't help but be struck by the difference between mine and my brother's lives. It was puzzling sometimes to think that we'd grown up in the same household; I felt as if Carlisle had handled everything much better than I had. I had always been the type to internalise everything whereas Carlisle always believed that problems were supposed to be shared and maybe that was the exact reason that he handled our shared past much better than I had. It wasn't that Carlisle wasn't affected by it – he was – it was just that he hadn't let it overshadow the rest of his life, when for a very long time, that was exactly what I had done. Even when I was on the other side of the world, the thing that had driven me there in the first place was the need to just be anywhere but home. Carlisle had always handled everything more constructively and as well as admiring him for that, several years ago I resented him for it as well.

"What are you doing out here Edward?" he asked after a few more moments of laughing at some memory of his crazy friends.

I shrugged, turning back out to look at the lights of the city below. "I was just thinking," I said honestly. "It's a little strange to be back here right?"

Carlisle joined me where I stood, facing the same view as I was. "Kind of," he agreed. "But strange in a good way." I agreed with him, but didn't know what else to add to that description; it had been what I'd been feeling all night.

"I was back here last year you know," he told me after silence had surrounded us for a few minutes. "I was just catching a connecting flight, but I had hours before my next one, so I took the train and found myself back home."

I had turned my head to face my older brother, surprise evident in my expression. Carlisle hadn't told me anything about being in Chicago so recently, let alone going back to our childhood home. It was strange to hear him still refer to it as home; I hadn't thought about it that way for a very long time.

"I don't know what the hell I was thinking...I guess I wasn't really thinking at all. It was just a very familiar trip back. I was knocking on the door before I even really knew what I'd done." Carlisle was recounting his experience to me of walking around the house he'd spent 18 years of his life in with a sort of wonder in his voice that I didn't understand at all.

As many happy memories as there were attached to our early childhood in that house, there were far more bad ones connected to more a more recent period in both of our lives. I would never be able to look at the house without remembering the way my mother was taken away, crying and promising that she would try to do better. I would never be able to see that kitchen without seeing my mother's dripping onto the otherwise pristine floor. I would never be able to set foot in my old room without seeing a younger version of myself crying quietly in the middle of the night wondering why I wasn't a good enough son for my father to stay. There were so many bad recollections that the mere mention of the house brought to mind that I didn't know how Carlisle could have even stood in front of it, never mind walk around it.

"It was different for me Ed," he told me when I expressed this opinion. "I had a much easier time with Dad than you ever did and there was a lot more of my childhood that was what people would define as 'normal' than yours. The house means something different to me."

I didn't say anything, though I conceded in my own mind that he had a point; Carlisle had experienced the relationship that I would have done anything to have in my youth. My older brother carried on reminiscing about his time at the house and at some points, I could clearly see in my mind's eye the recollections he was bringing up. Now, I looked back on my early years with the bitter cynicism of someone who'd seen it all go to hell and then some, but listening to Carlisle talk, I couldn't deny that at some point in our lives, we'd all been happy. My relationship with my father may never have been what I wanted it to be, but when he was there, I remember being in a happy family; I remember feeling loved.

"Maybe you should go back there Ed," Carlisle suggested gently when he'd finished recounting a Christmas morning we'd had when he was 12 and I was barely 5.

I snorted. Yes, I was remembering some good times right now, but that in no way meant I was ready to stroll down memory lane. "I don't think so Carlisle. There was a reason I left Chicago and a reason I haven't been back."

My older brother turned and looked me straight in the eye. "Maybe those reasons wouldn't follow you around so much if you went back and just left them where they're supposed to be Edward."

The old closure card. Not cliché at all.

"Carlisle-" I began to argue with him, but the gravity of our conversation was interrupted when Alastair and Charles burst through, bringing with them raucous laughter and loud music from inside.

"What the hell are you two miserable fuckers doing out here?" Charles shouted, even though we weren't very far away from each other at all.

"Just enjoying the view Charles," Carlisle answered, smiling at the antics of his friends.

"Well the view inside will probably get far more interesting than the one out here," Alastair piped up. "Didn't someone say something about a stripper?"

My brother started laughing and walking back in with his obviously inebriated friends, leaving me alone to think about his words. Was Carlisle right? Did I need to go back and say goodbye to all the hurtful memories I'd associated with my childhood home? Rosalie had gone back to England to face her demons – both literally and figuratively – maybe it was time that I did the same, but what would it do for me if I did?

Carlisle was saying goodbye so that he could start a new chapter of his life without the old parts encroaching. Rosalie laid everything to rest so that she could finally believe that she was worthy of being happy. If I went back to the home that held so many negative associations for me, would I finally be able to get rid of the guilt and the unworthiness that had been following me my entire adult life?

* * *

A/N: Thank you very much for everyone reading this and everyone who reviews. Reading your reviews makes me smile, truly.

Bella is so damn confused these days...one thing goes right in her life and five more things go wrong. It's like the girl can't catch a break huh? Still, she finally got a chance to ask Esme questions about Kristen and we got a little more insight into the character that Bella is playing and the story within this story. And Edward...so many issues with his parents that he's pushed to the back of his mind...looks like Bella isn't the only one who runs away from her problems. Hope you enjoyed reading the chapter even if there was no almost kiss in this one.


	28. Chapter 28 And so we Begin

**Obviously I cannot even begin to apologise enough, but I am incredibly sorry for the lack of updates and lack of well...anything. Anyway, you've all been waiting long enough for this chapter so here it is...**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 28: EPOV**

Monday morning came before I was ready for it to. One minute I was collapsing, fully clothed, on the couch and the next, I was being woken up by the piercing sound of my very annoying alarm. I resisted the urge to throw the white, plastic contraption against the nearest wall; or rather the fact that I was having trouble raising my arms to even shut it up resisted that urge for me. I was exhausted and even though I knew it was completely irresponsible of me to turn up on the first day of actually shooting in this state, I couldn't bring myself to regret it at all. After all, it wasn't every day that your older brother had a bachelor party. Still, when I got back to the apartment at ten the previous night, I had been running on very little sleep for two nights straight and I couldn't cope anymore, hence the reason I was waking up in the clothes I'd come back from Chicago in. I looked at the now silent clock and sighed heavily when I saw that there was only 30 minutes until the driver would be downstairs. It took a monumental effort for me to get up from the couch so that I could shower the filth of the last couple of days from my body in an attempt to feel vaguely human again. I wasn't hung-over; I was just so god damn tired.

It was only when I knocked on the door of my room to see if I could forage for some clean clothes to go to work in that I remembered Rosalie wasn't actually here and I could have had a night's sleep in my own bed. She, Esme and a few other close friends and family had gone up to Esme's parent's house in the Hamptons for a couple of days, having their own bachelorette party of sorts. I doubted it would be Rosalie's thing at all; she kind of hated the upper class repression shit that happened at these parties, but it was important to Esme, who had been there for Rosalie when no one else could have been; it was the least she could do. Rose wouldn't be back until the middle of the week and I was selfishly glad about the fact that I would be sleeping on a proper mattress for the next couple of nights at least without having to worry about Rosalie's safety.

Bella was knocking on my door just as I was pulling a shirt over my head. "Come in!" I called as I walked out of my bedroom.

I saw her walk in through the door, smiling at me and suddenly I wasn't at all tired anymore and was very excited to get to work so that I could do my job – with Bella. It would be quite a surreal experience to be onset this morning knowing that we would be shooting for real, not just rehearsing scenes; this was it. I would have been much more nervous was I not completely exhausted and excited about seeing my...well, about seeing Bella.

"Hey," she greeted. "I wasn't expecting you to be dressed."

I gave her a pointed look. "I'm sorry, should I take some clothes off?"

Bella's mouth dropped for a fraction of a second before she could figure out what her words had sounded like to my apparently dirty mind. Once she realised what she'd inadvertently implied, she shook her head and laughed. "I guess spending a couple of days with a dozen testosterone-filled men whistling at naked women is going to put your mind in the gutter."

I chuckled with her, but protested to the comment about the naked women. "The only person I saw naked was Charles and that experience would put anyone off ever thinking about anything related to sex or nudity again."

"Do I even want to ask?"

I shook my head. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

Bella raised an eyebrow at me. "You know you're not shooting a James Bond film today don't you?"

I rolled my eyes at her sarcasm. "We're not going to be shooting anything if we don't leave soon."

Bella laughed. "You know it's you I'm waiting for right? Until about two minutes ago you weren't even dressed." So we were back to my state of undress? This conversation seemed to be revolving around my clothing or lack thereof...interesting.

I grabbed my keys from the coffee table I must have discarded them on when I collapsed on the sofa the night before. "I guess you came two minutes too late then," I teased, not really thinking about what I was saying.

I turned around in time to see Bella smile at what had just come out of my mouth and then twist her lips in thought. I was worried that I'd overstepped some sort of boundary and was about to take it back when I saw the twinkle in her eye as she moved them from my face down to the rest of my body.

Holy hell! Was Bella Swan checking me out?

"I guess I did," she agreed with me finally, a smirk firmly in place as I stood there in complete awe of what had just happened. Had I woken up to a parallel universe where it was okay for Bella and I to flirt with each other so blatantly? Was I still asleep?

Bella just chuckled at my dumbfounded expression and led the way out of my apartment and to the car. I followed her, my mind reeling with questions and trying to figure out what could have happened this weekend to cause this change. If anything, I had expected Bella to completely back off from any kind of friendly exchange that could be construed as something else due to the wrongful accusations and assumptions made by that rag of a magazine. I had been worried once again that she would completely back away from whatever had been undoubtedly developing between us due to guilt or fear or something else. As usual though, I couldn't have been more wrong about Bella's reactions even if I did know exactly how she was feeling. It was a strange dichotomy in our relationship; I knew how she felt without her having to tell me, but I could never anticipate just how she was going to react to those feelings.

*

As soon as I saw who was walking towards our still moving car, I suddenly wished I'd stayed in Chicago. Carmen was marching in our direction, eyes hidden behind sun glasses, but body language screaming that she wasn't here for a nice chat. The fact that she was here at all instead of with her family in LA meant that I was in some serious shit and if it wouldn't have been completely useless, I would have asked the driver to turn around and just drive me back. Carmen, however, looked like she was out for blood – mine specifically – and the woman was worse than a shark when it came to sniffing the stuff out; I wouldn't be safe as long as I was on the same continent as she was. I figured that I would have at least had a phone call from Carmen, telling me that she was on her way over here, but then again she always did go for the route with the most impact. She told me once that people were more vulnerable when they were surprised; she wasn't fucking wrong.

"Tense much?" Bella asked, confused at my very quick change in demeanour. She turned her head to look out at the window in the same direction that my eyes seemed to be glued to and then she turned back, understanding shining from her.

"Yeah," I answered her unasked question.

"Shit."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

The car stopped in front of Carmen, as if she had personally instructed our driver to pull over a foot away from her. Hell, maybe she had; I wouldn't put it past her. She didn't open the door though, instead waiting for me to step out into the daylight and face the music.

"Good morning Edward," Carmen greeted, smiling as I straightened up. She seemed perfectly calm, which made me all the more nervous. "Nice weekend?"

"Carmen," I replied, nodding my head at her, wondering if she would ream me out in front of all of my cast mates and the film crew. I doubted it very much because as passionate and a little tempestuous as Carmen could be, she was nothing if not professional. Screaming at me like I was an out of control child would be the very opposite of professional and completely classless; something Carmen most definitely not. "It was definitely interesting. I didn't know you were coming."

Her answer was cut off by the other car door slamming shut and Carmen's eyes slid from me to over my shoulder and no doubt she spotted Bella. "You know how I love surprises Ed," she told me, her gaze coming back to rest on me, her eyebrows raised in question.

I smiled wryly at that; Carmen may have absolutely thrived on surprising people, but she hated the shoe being on the other foot and I knew she would hit the figurative and literal roof when she saw the damn magazine article. She started walking towards Bella before I had a chance to ask her exactly what she was doing 3,000 miles from where she loved being. I turned to see the shock on Bella's face as she saw a stranger that I seemed to be terrified of walk towards her.

"Isabella Swan," Carmen called out, her hand proffered for Bella to shake. "Nice to meet you; I've heard so much about you."

Bella's eyes quickly flashed in my direction before returning Carmen's warm greeting. "Nice to meet you too," she said graciously, though I didn't know if she knew exactly who Carmen was, I figured she'd figured it out. A huge part of me wanted to use the time Carmen's attention was directed at someone else to walk quickly away (not run) into a room full of other people. However, I knew I couldn't leave Bella alone with my manager; not least because it would make me look like a complete jerk in her eyes. It wasn't exactly the kind of impression I wanted to give someone I was just a little more than _interested_ in. There was also the small, but significant fact that Carmen's anger would only grow the longer she held the fury in.

"Sue told me you have a meeting this morning?" Carmen posed it as a question, but really it was more of a statement, which had the desired effect on Bella. She nodded, her eyes once again travelling to mine and her eyebrows rising almost imperceptibly to ask me whether or not I wanted her to remain where she was instead of hurrying to the opening meeting of the shoot. I smiled at her to reassure her that she was and after she had excused herself from Carmen's presence, moved to where I knew Sue had gathered all the cast and crew of the film.

I couldn't help but follow her all the way until she turned a corner and could no longer be seen. I knew that Carmen was probably studying my reaction and would no doubt use it against me in our upcoming discussion about the validity of the article's claims, but I found myself not being able to tear my eyes away from Bella. The woman was constantly leaving me in a state of amazement and not just because she was willing to stand with me against Carmen when she didn't even really know what the subject of our conversation was going to be. It was the small things that I notice about her too; the way she bit her lip sometimes when she was deep in thought; the way her hands couldn't keep still when she was anxious; the way that she jittered around when she couldn't quite get the words out to express precisely what was on her mind. Everything about Bella left me wondering why the hell I had ever thought I would get over my initial attraction to her. I had been fighting a losing battle from the very beginning and I had ever been happier to lose.

"You know watching her walk away with that cheesy grin on your face that makes you look like my six year old when he sees an ice cream cone right?" Carmen comments without even turning around. I guess being a Mom really did give you eyes in the back of your head.

"I take it you're here to talk about the article?" I asked, choosing neither to confirm or deny what she had said because anything I said would have just made me sound like an idiot in her mind, I'm sure.

Carmen turned around to face me finally and smiled. "I like that you're willing to get down to business straight away Edward, but I absolutely do not want to have this conversation in the public domain."

I looked around the completely empty grey expanse of land which was located behind locked gates and raised my eyebrows at her. She honestly thought _this _was public domain? Apart from the two security men at least two hundred yards away from us, every other living person was several buildings away, behind locked doors, getting a welcome/pep talk from our director and some of the producers involved in the film. There wasn't going to be anyone over-hearing our conversation.

Carmen just shook her head and started walking away. "You still have so much to learn," was all she was willing to say, not bothering to tell me to follow her, but instead assuming (correctly) that I would follow.

We had walked to the other side of the lot and into a small room within the last building on site before she finally turned to face me again. "Are you actually serious about your career Edward?" Carmen asked, removing her sunglasses finally.

"Of course!" I exclaimed, more than a little insulted that she would even ask me that. I had moved across the country to a place that I absolutely hated, ended a long-term relationship and carried the burden of feeling like I abandoned my mother because I was so serious about my job and now because of a rag, she was questioning my commitment? That was absolute bullshit! I could feel my indignation rise up within me, but before I could start to give her a piece of my mind, Carmen spoke again.

"Really?" Her eyes flashed with anger. "Because the first significant piece published about you and this film doesn't paint you as a good actor. Instead it paints you as a bastard willing to break up a long-term relationship because you want a shot at your _teenage_ co-star."

"Significant piece?" I scoffed, too angry at the rest of what she'd said to even start commenting on it. "That magazine is a piece of shit and you know it. Everyone in the industry knows it!"

"A piece of shit that several million people read," Carmen argued back. "A piece of shit that the target demographic of basically every big Hollywood film reads every single week and you know what? Everyone in the industry also knows that. The people working for that rag may not know what journalistic integrity is Edward? But they can sure put together a string of words convincing enough to influence a lot of your prospective audience and therefore your prospective employers."

"You know none of it is true anyway." I changed tact because I knew that Carmen was right. I hadn't thought about it the way she had, but then again I hadn't been in the business as long as she had.

"And you know that it doesn't matter if it's true or not," Carmen reminded me. "Half the stories you read in a magazine – hell, even a newspaper these days – isn't true Edward. But do you honestly believe that people out there care about the truth? What they care about is the _sensational_ headlines and the _drama_ that front covers like this create. People don't want the truth and reality Edward; if they did, we'd all be out of a fucking job!"

I groaned in frustration and defeat. Everything Carmen had said made sense; of course it wouldn't matter to anyone else what the truth was because the gossip and the rumour made it all so much more exciting than what it was. The truth of the story was that Bella and I were friends; close friends, but at the moment, just friends. That truth would never stand up to the story of a torrid love affair; a deception, a seduction and a betrayal. Hollywood thrived because people loved scandal, but this was not who I wanted to be known as; this was not what I wanted to be known for. I didn't want to be the upstart jerk who lured his vulnerable, teenage co-star away from the loving arms of her long-term boyfriend. I didn't want to be painted as the next Tinsel town lothario.

"What the hell do you want me to do Carmen?" I asked finally. "We're friends and we are working on a film together. It's not like I can just completely ignore her and what's more I don't want to."

Carmen opened her mouth to speak; probably to say a few more choice words to me, but I carried on, not allowing her the opportunity for another eye-opening speech.

"Bella and I haven't done anything wrong. Those pictures may _look_ incriminating, but they don't tell the whole story of any of those times. We didn't go out to dinner by ourselves; we hadn't just come out of a motel room after having sex in the middle of the day. A picture may paint a thousand words, but there are about ten thousand more it doesn't and in this case it's those other 10,000 that matter."

Carmen sighed as I finished and looked at her right in the eye, showing her that I was being truthful. I may have been having rather inappropriate thoughts about Bella, but neither one of us had really done anything reprehensible. Suddenly, I was quite glad that some drunken idiot had barged into me on the street last week because otherwise I would have been standing in front of Carmen right now either lying or confessing something that would probably have gotten me hit.

"Look, Edward I get it alright," Carmen said, her voice much more gentle than it had been since we walked into this room. "I get that you want to make a good impression on this movie and you _should_ want that; you _should_ want this to be a performance that defines you because roles like this are the things that make actors stars. I wouldn't have agreed to be your manager if you didn't want those things, but you have to draw a line between who you are on screen and who you are away from it. You cannot let the fantasy come home with you."

I looked at her for a moment, confused as to what exactly it was that she was saying to me, but when the meaning of her words finally dawned on me, I felt a new surge of anger and indignation flow through me. She honestly thought that I was getting myself and Bella confused with the characters that we were playing? She believed that I couldn't see past the way Rob felt about Kristen when I looked at Bella. She couldn't have been more wrong and she couldn't have been any more disrespectful to either myself or the amazingly unique person that was Isabella Swan. I respected the hell out of Carmen for who she was and what she did, but on this matter, she was absolutely and completely out of line. She didn't have a fucking clue about mine and Bella's relationship; all she was basing her judgement upon was what she had witnessed time and time again, but people were individuals and so I had the right to be judged as such.

"I'm fully aware of who I am when the camera stops rolling Carmen." It's now my voice that is wrapped in sharp steel and ice. "I know when my job ends and when real life begins so don't you dare stand there lecturing me about something you don't know anything about."

Carmen snorted, not at all fazed by the hardness in my voice. I wasn't really that surprised; I was fairly sure she had handled much more volatile people in much worse circumstances. "You can't bullshit a bullshitter Edward," she said rather calmly. "I saw the way you looked at her. I saw the way you two were with each other and I'd bet my fucking business that the thousand words those pictures captured were probably the only ones that could be printed in a magazine available for general viewing."

I heard the implication, but before I could truly blow a gasket, Carmen held up a hand to stop me and just carried on talking. "Look," she said quickly, her whole body straightening up so that it hardly felt like I was a good six inches taller than her. "Honestly, I believe you when you say that nothing inappropriate has happened because I know you're not that kind of guy, but what I came down here to say to you – apart from be more fucking careful – is that absolutely fucking _nothing_ can happen with this girl if you don't want all this to blow up in both of your faces."

I think my mouth may have dropped open. Was this woman honestly trying to tell me who I could and couldn't date? Carmen may have been my manager – and as such, she had a huge say in a lot of aspects of my professional life – but this wasn't my professional life and I wasn't a fucking teenager that needed to be told to think about the consequences of my actions. I hadn't been thinking about anything _but_ the consequences of any action I may take about my attraction to Bella. I had been fighting it for over two months because I knew it could negatively impact not only on my life, but on hers and just when I'd finally decided to just let everything be the way it was going to be, Carmen shows up to tell me that I wasn't thinking enough about the consequences.

"What?!" I think that my voice may have been too loud for the room and possibly for the situation, but I found that I just couldn't help myself. "Have I walked into a world where I'm not in charge of my own life now Carmen? I didn't think I signed away my free will when I signed the contract with your company."

Carmen shook her head and rolled her eyes, as if nothing I'd said made a bit of difference to what she had been thinking. In truth, it probably didn't. "Yeah well maybe you should have read the small print a bit more carefully." Her dismissive tone just served to piss me off some more. I couldn't believe that she was acting like this. It was one damn article in one magazine that had made wild allegations based on nothing and Carmen had come here to chew me out as if I _had_ done what I'd been accused of doing. I had thought that Carmen's job was to take my side against the rest of the industry, but it seemed as if I was mistaken and her role was actually to make me feel like a misbehaving child. I had gotten a glimpse as to what it would have been like to have Carmen as a mother.

I was seriously considering just turning around and walking away. I had better things to do than stand in front of Carmen and being made to feel like I'd been irresponsible and stupid when I hadn't even actually done anything wrong and certainly nothing to be reprimanded for. I started to turn around, but Carmen's arm stopped me from going any further. I looked back to a different face; one that was far softer than the hardness that she had been displaying for the past ten minutes.

"Look Edward, I know you're thinking that I'm being hard on you for now reason and that I'm blowing this way out of proportion, but what you have to realise is that this isn't just one magazine article." The shock and confusion I felt must have shown on my face because Carmen smiled a little at me. "Technology is both a blessing and a curse. One article from a magazine equals about a thousand different articles on websites," she explained. "Your career is barely starting out. This is your first role and public opinion about who you are is pretty much everything right now. You cannot have people who could potentially be your fans hating you because of what they _think_ you've done before they even have chance to see how good of an actor you are."

I blew out a breath, frustration welling up inside me for a whole different reason – because Carmen was right. It wouldn't matter if I gave an Oscar-worthy performance in this role if no one came to see the movie. It was beyond irritating that people I didn't even know were judging me based on a few hundred words printed by someone I had never met in a magazine that didn't even bother to fact check before running a story. It was ridiculous, unfair and I absolutely _hated_ it, but there was nothing I could do to change it. Carmen was right; I had to be more careful that I didn't give anyone the wrong opinion about what my relationship with Bella was. The only problem with that plan was that I didn't know myself what the _right_ impression was.

*

I caught the end of the meeting and therefore some of Sue's inspirational words of encouragement for the long days and weeks ahead. I looked around the room at the people I would be spending the majority of the next ten weeks with these people and it was kind of disturbing to know that _someone_ in this room had spoken to someone from that magazine. I wondered if Sue had mentioned it at all in the meeting. I surveyed the faces in the room, trying to eliminate each person as the possible 'onset source' that the magazine had claimed to have. I knew for certain that it wasn't Alice. She may have thought that I was the sort of guy willing to seduce someone's girlfriend from under them, but she would _not_ have dragged Bella's name into it like that. I didn't think it was either Ben or Angela because even though I didn't know them too well, they really didn't seem like people who would even participate in gossip – let alone be the source of it. Mike and Tyler were possibilities, but even if they had been the idiots that had started the rumours flying on the set about the day at the motel, I was pretty certain they valued their jobs enough not to be blabbing to the press. From what Bella had told me Jessica and Jane were also likely candidates for having the biggest mouths here, but once again, the threat of being unemployed hung over them too. One by one I listed reasons against each person on the cast or crew being the 'source' for the rag of a magazine. The problem was that everyone had both something to lose and gain by talking to the so-called press and I didn't know which would be the greatest motivator for anyone in the room – money or career.

I caught Bella's eye as the meeting broke up and we both hung back a little so that we'd be the last two to leave. She informed me that Sue hadn't mentioned the article specifically, but had given a general warning that if anyone was caught leaking anything from the set – pictures, exchanged words – anything at all – they would be fired on the spot. Nothing escaped the set unless she had personally sanctioned it. Bella asked about my meeting with Carmen to which I could only give her the bare minimum of details. It wasn't as if I could tell her that my manager had ordered me to stop whatever relationship was progressing between the two of us for the good of both my career and the movie. In the first instance, I didn't really want to make it seem like I wasn't even in charge of my own life (although that's certainly how I felt) and secondly, I didn't want Bella thinking that I _presumed_ there was anything developing between us besides friendship. There were definitely times when I could swear that the unidentifiable _thing_ between Bella and I wasn't just something I felt, but I didn't want to make a complete ass out of myself. I had decided to let things just sort of happen naturally between us and that did not include confessing anything to her – not right now anyway. Not when we were under scrutiny from everyone around us and not when she still actually, technically still had a boyfriend.

I knew that Bella probably suspected that there were some things that had come from my conversation with Carmen that I wasn't telling her about, but she let it go and we spent the rest of our walk to the make-up trailers talking about the scenes that we were shooting that day. The writers had made a few changes to the script and as the make-up artists and hairstylists fussed around Bella and I, we read the new changes – both to ourselves and, where appropriate, each other. The changes weren't major – just a few lines cut here and there, a scene that had been cut and another one put in place later on. I knew that there would probably be more script changes throughout shooting and certainly more during editing. The script that we had in our hands right at that moment would only probably resemble the final product – much of the material written and shot for a film actually ended up on the cutting room floor.

An hour and a half later and I left Bella to go to wardrobe whilst she seemed to be having fake nails stuck onto the ends of her real ones. I was shooting my first scenes of the day with Alice and Tyler whilst Bella was undergoing a transformation to become Kristen, which apparently took longer than I could imagine since her first scene of the day – the very same one I used to do the first audition – wouldn't be until late this afternoon. The production company and Sue had finally decided to use Rob's original tracks instead of my voice, which I was more than happy with. They had told me that as good as my voice was, it just couldn't compare to the real thing and I couldn't have agreed more wholeheartedly. As much as it would have been an amazing honour to have sung his songs for the film, there were certain things that he had written later on that I would have felt extremely uncomfortable singing. There were words that were written by a completely broken man that just would not have sounded as sincere coming from anyone who hadn't experienced the same kind of heartbreak.

*

"_Rob!" The banging that accompanied the feminine yell echoed in the darkness of the halls, up the narrow wooden staircase and into the room where a lone man lay on his bed staring at the white-grey ceiling. He could hear the pounding that had been pretty persistent for the past ten minutes and he recognised the voice that had been growing more frantic every single time her calls had been met with silence, but he couldn't bring himself to care much less respond. _

_He couldn't bear to face her knowing the look of sympathy and worry that he'd see in her eyes. It wasn't really that seeing those things shining from the eyes of his oldest friends would make it more real – the excruciating pain from deep within what he could only describe as his soul was already doing a stellar job at reminding him of that – it was just that he couldn't physically summon up the energy to pretend to them that he thought their words of comfort could bring any relief; nothing could. Ashley and Dan had both been calling on him and ringing for the past four days, but he couldn't even summon the energy to pick up the phone and let them know he was still alive. He _knew_ somewhere that he should be more grateful to have friends that gave a shit about you when you were literally at your lowest point, but he couldn't be grateful for much of anything right now; he couldn't summon up any sort of feelings that trumped the absolute grief and agony he was experiencing._

_His eyelids started to drift close, but he opened them quickly when he realised what they were about to do. He felt his heart speed up and his breaths come out in shorter pants; he _hated_ closing his eyes. He had been sleeping only in short bursts for the past few nights because every time he shut out the rest of the world all he saw was her face and sometimes, he had to run to the bathroom to retch – the pain at remembering their last moments together was enough to make him physically sick. Running to the bathroom was about the most activity he'd attempted since he found himself back in his old home three nights ago. He wasn't quite sure _how_ he'd gotten here, but he didn't feel the need to leave; perhaps he never would again._

_He continued to stare at the ceiling, blinking slowly and breathing slowly, looking like he was actually physically incapacitated. Maybe he was. Maybe this was what his life would be now; just sitting in this room willing the world to stop and turn back so he could exist in a time that this wasn't his reality. He rolled over to face the door when he heard more knocking, wishing he was the type of person who cared enough to put his friends' minds at ease about the current state he was in, but he wasn't. They wouldn't believe him anyway. They would hear the hollowness in his voice or see the emptiness in his eyes and they'd know that he wasn't the same as he was before; he probably never would be again. He honestly felt like someone had died; like _he_ had died. He imagined that if spirits, or souls or whatever, existed, this was what they would feel like had the body that housed them died. Rob didn't know if he believed in that kind of thing, but it was the best way he could think to explain the kind of darkness he was currently experiencing. _

_He rolled back over onto his back to stare once more at the empty ceiling, trying not to think about the last time that he was here, looking at exactly the same thing, though in what was literally a different life. It seemed as if it wasn't just the world that wanted to torture him, but his own subconscious. He felt as if he needed to be here, but this was also where a lot of memories of the two of them together came from. This was where she had first come after him, letting him know that he wasn't the only one that had felt the world drift away that first night in Paris. This was where he'd told her that he loved her the first time. This was where she had made love to him after hearing the song that he'd written for her. This was where she had told him that her dream was to spend the rest of her life with him. _

_Robert swallowed the lump forming in his throat and closed his eyes willingly in an attempt to stop the tears from falling, but they wouldn't be deterred. There was _so_ much and he _wished_ with all his might that he could just stop remembering it all. He wished that he could convince himself that she had been lying the whole time; that she had never loved him the way she claimed to – the way he loved her – but he couldn't. He had _felt_ her love for him in the way she looked at him, the way she spoke to him, the way she touched him, the way she made love to him. He couldn't deny her love for him anymore than he could deny his love for her. And that was what made it all the more difficult; that it didn't matter how much and how truly they loved one another – it just wasn't enough._

_His body shook with the force of his silent sobbing._

"_Rob please just bloody let us know if you're still alive," Ashley pleaded through the letter box. She was absolutely desperate and very close to just breaking the heavy wooden door down. She knew something was wrong the instant that Robert showed up on the stage in Liverpool looking like he'd spent the day in a skip and then stopped by a pub on the way over to the gig. He certainly smelt like that. _

_The whole night had been a bit of a disaster and it was a testament to how loyal their fans were that there wasn't a riot started when three songs in, Rob just decided to tell everyone to fuck off and walked right out of the venue. Neither Ashley nor Dan could follow him because there were a bunch of rightly confused fans and outraged promoters to worry about. By the time either of them got out of the mess that he'd left behind, they had no idea where he'd gone. They didn't find out he was at his old London house until two days later and they'd been over every single day since trying to find signs of life from within to no avail. _

"_This isn't doing any good Ash," Dan said after they'd been standing outside knocking on his door and shouting for him for a solid 15 minutes. They were starting to get funny looks from his neighbours and the last thing anyone wanted was for the media to get called about this mess. _

"_What the hell are we supposed to do Dan?" she asked him, her voice echoing the distress emanating from her face. "We can't call the police because the next thing you know the front page of the bloody paper will be saying he had an overdose or something. Neither of us have a spare key and it's not like we can throw a blood brick through his window and not have that bring unnecessary attention."_

"_I don't know Ash," Dan replied feeling all sorts of useless. They had more or less found out what was wrong with Rob as soon as they could get away from the many people voicing their discontent at Rob's disappearing act from the stage. Out of everything in the world, the only things that Rob cared enough about to be acting like this over was music and Kristen and the band had been doing brilliantly until he pissed a load of people off four nights ago. Kristen, on the other hand, had been almost incoherent when they managed to get her on the phone yesterday and even after ten minutes trying to talk to her all they managed to understand was that she was sorry and that she loved Rob._

_Dan and Ashley were both worried that Rob was going to do something terrible and incredibly stupid. It wasn't about the anxious managers that were on their backs about Rob's behaviour, demanding an explanation for the stunt that he'd pulled. It wasn't about the owners of the venue that threatened some kind of legal action. It wasn't even about the fans – though of course they did deserve some kind of explanation. It was about the fact that their oldest and closest friend had lost something that they'd both seen meant _everything_ to him and they wanted to help him. Even though they knew that nothing they said or did right now would make any difference to Rob, they wanted to be there to stop him doing something that he could never take back; something that would break the hearts of many, not just those closest to him. _

"_I'm just...I don't know what...I'm fucking terrified Dan," Ashley admitted. She slid down the door and onto the cold stone step that they'd both been previously standing on. Neither one of them had voiced what exactly they were so concerned about, but they both knew._

_Dan followed Ashley, sitting down beside her and bringing her head to his shoulder. "Maybe we should just say to hell with the publicity and just get the police to break the door down."_

_Ashley didn't say anything for a while, trying to get hold on her emotions before she completely broke down. Dan did not need to witness her meltdown as well as Rob's; they'd both had enough to deal with the past few days and now it was a case of leave no man behind. Finally, when she knew she could open her mouth without saying anything hysterical about what Robert may have already done to himself inside the house, she gave her assent. "It may be best if we go over there and talk to someone though," she suggested, taking a deep breath and willing the tears to stop. "Maybe we can get them to come here in something other than a car emblazoned with the word 'POLICE'."_

_Dan nodded and stood up, pulling Ashley with him. They both took one last look up to the front window on the second floor, knowing that the curtains would still be closed and the lights would still be off. They just hoped that even though it didn't look inhabited by any form of life from the outside, that inside was a different story. As Dan led the way down the path and onto the pavement, he heard Ashley whisper a plea to their best friend that he wouldn't hear and probably wouldn't follow through with even if he could._

"_Please, please be okay."_

_*_

**BPOV**

Sue's meeting was...interesting, which was more than I could say for every other similar meeting I'd attended in my years as an actor. There was the typical welcoming of everyone, of course; the usual speech about everyone working together as a team to achieve the best possible result. There were introductions to members of the production company and the studio that we had never been properly introduced to – and of course their five minute speeches about their roles and what they hoped they could add to the team. All of that was standard and all of that was pretty boring. So boring in fact that I spent the first forty-five minutes of the meeting wondering what was happening between Edward and Carmen, who I assumed was his manager. I got the distinct feeling before leaving them that Edward was reluctant to be left alone with her, but she seemed to be determined to talk to him. I knew what it was going to be about, of course, but I didn't know what stand Carmen would take on it. I had known Renata for a long time and even she had to be convinced that there was nothing going on between me and Edward.

The interesting part of Sue's speech was when she started talking about how everything on the set was privileged information and only those people who were working on the movie had any rights to know it at all. She talked about trust and about how anyone she found out couldn't be trusted would be sent home without a job and a black mark on their record so they would be lucky to get a job within the industry again. She told everyone that the set was locked down – nothing was to be taken on or off without her express permission and that included any conversations or rumours that may be circulating. I could feel several pairs of eyes in the room on the back of my head and I knew exactly what had prompted this speech. I was in two minds about the effect; on the one hand I was cringing at the fact that everyone knew exactly what had been printed about Edward and I (not that I ever figured anything different), on the other I was glad that Sue was at least trying to nip all the gossip in the bud. I would have hated having to dump another ice cold drink all over someone. Well, okay I wouldn't have hated it if they deserved it, but I didn't want to get a reputation for doing that.

Edward appeared about ten minutes before the meeting broke up, looking a little troubled and very thoughtful. Again I wondered about Carmen's reaction to the press that he'd gotten over the weekend. It was different for Edward; he was new to the business and negative reports about his character would be far more damaging than negative reports on my character. I had a solid body of work that people in the industry could look back on; I had worked with some of the most respected people in the business and garnered their good opinions, so public perception of who I was didn't quite weigh so heavily in regard to whether or not I got a role. Of course it still counted – in the business we were in, it always would – but it wasn't everything. For now, it was everything for Edward and I knew that if his management team was worth the 10% they were undoubtedly getting paid, they would be telling him this and trying like hell to limit the damage.

I couldn't help but be a little nervous about what exactly it was that they were going to do to 'limit the damage', though. I didn't want Edward to withdraw from me, from the friendship – or whatever it was – that I was only just beginning to really let myself explore. My relationship with Edward was confusing enough without adding the pressure of other people into the mix, but I would understand if Carmen's advice to him was to just keep things professional; I would understand it, but I wouldn't like it. And maybe it was a little selfish of me to hope that Edward would reject such advice, but I was a pretty selfish person, no matter what steps I was taking to try and rectify that problem.

It was somewhat of a relief to me that when the meeting finally broke up, Edward waited around so that we could walk out to the makeup trailers together. It seemed as if he hadn't been told to completely cut off contact with me then. He asked about what he'd missed during the meeting before I could start questioning him about what Carmen had said, but when I finally did ask him about their meeting, he seemed reluctant to tell me the details. Or at least that's what it seemed like. Maybe they didn't take all the time to discuss what had been written over the weekend at all; maybe they had talked a little about what he was going to do after this film was over, which would not have concerned me one bit. However, I got the feeling that Edward was purposely keeping something back and that left me feeling both hurt and a little anxious. If I wanted to examine why I was feeling so apprehensive about what Edward's talk with Carmen would do to the development of our friendship, I may have pressed him further about the exchange, but as it was, I wanted to push all these thoughts to the back of my mind. We had a film to shoot after all and the first day was probably the most important of the entire schedule; it set up the expectations for the rest of the shoot.

One of the things I really did not like when filming was sitting in makeup for hours on end. I understood the need for it and I absolutely _loved_ the end results, but I detested sitting down in front of a mirror whilst people fussed around me changing everything from the length of my eyelashes to the shape of my face. I knew that once I got out and looked more like the character I was playing, I would _feel_ more like the character I was playing, but it didn't make the hours sitting down go by any faster and as such, I would never like being 'made up'. Surprisingly the hour and a half that Edward had been in the chair next to me had gone by quite quickly, but as if to make up for that anomaly, when he left time seemed to slow down more than usual so by the time I'd finished the two and a half hours of allotted time in there, it felt like I'd been in for five.

My first scene wasn't being filmed until after a break for lunch and I _should_ have been going to the costume department to get everything ready, but I couldn't help but make a detour to where the screens were displaying what Sue was shooting of Edward, Alice and Tyler. This scene had not been in the original script, but it wasn't the newest one to be added either. I had first read it after the second round of auditions, just before we all came out to New York and it was probably one of my favourite scenes of the entire thing. It contrasted nicely with the scene of Robert near the end, when he finds out that Kristen was dead and it went a long way to explaining why he behaved the way he did in the later scene. Alice had said she felt it slowed down the movie, but I thought it was actually pretty vital to the whole essence of Robert and Kristen's relationship.

I was watching the second take, it said on the screen. The camera was on Edward, filming from above him as he stared blankly at what should have been the ceiling of his Robert's bedroom. Edward's eyes connected with the camera so that as I watched the screen, it seemed as if his eyes were on me and yet they weren't looking _at_ me. Instead, Edward's eyes – or rather Robert's – felt as if they were looking _through_ me and at something else that I couldn't see. It was a powerful image and as Sue continued to film him lying down on his back just seeing nothing in front of him, remembering only the girl that had showed him life only to take it away again, I knew straight away that everyone else would see how _right_ Edward Cullen really was for this role. Every emotion that had been written down in the script played across his face and projected from his blue eyes into me; I felt what he felt and it was absolutely heartbreaking.

"He's pretty good isn't he?" a voice said softly from behind me.

I jumped at the sound, unaware of anything except what was being captured on screen right in that moment. Angela was sitting in a chair behind me and slightly to the left and I had to wonder whether she'd been there the whole time. I hadn't seen her, but then again I'd been a little preoccupied with just watching Edward's performance.

"Sorry Bella, I didn't mean to startle you."

I shook my head. "Don't worry about it. I just didn't see you there."

Angela smiled in understanding and inclined her head in the direction of the screen, which had panned out to show Edward on his side, looking at the door to a background of pounding on wood. "Edward's pretty distracting."

I nodded my head in agreement without really considering that it could send the wrong sort of message. When I did realise what my assent could be taken to mean, my eyes widened slightly and I opened my mouth to clarify myself, but Angela was already laughing.

"Don't worry about it Bella, I knew what you meant," she assured me. "I wasn't trying to trick a confession out of you."

"That's not what..." I was embarrassed now that Angela thought I would think her capable of that. Angela wasn't Jane and even though she hadn't been 100% in her defence of me last week, she wasn't the sort of person to spread gossip or to try and catch people out. She was just trying to have a conversation with me and I was being paranoid. "I'm sorry," I apologised. "I didn't mean to imply anything."

Angela shook her head dismissively. "Look, I get it," she reassured me. "With what's been said onset about you and what's being written in the magazines now, I get why you'd want to be careful about what you say and to whom you say it, but honestly Bella, I'm not into the whole gossip scene."

I nodded. "Thanks Angela."

"No problem. It's just the way I'd expect to be treated so I extend people the same courtesy."

"Shame that's not true for everyone else in the world," I mumbled, making my way to occupy the seat next to her. "And to answer your initial question, yeah, he's pretty great."

She grinned at me, but didn't say anything else and we both went back to watching the scene that was currently being filmed no more than fifty feet away from us. When I saw the tears slip past Edward's closed eyelids, I wondered what he had been thinking about to summon them. It was a testament to his ability and his compatibility with the role that he could close his eyes and still be captivating. Usually being able to express emotion through your eyes is an actor's most important tool; people weren't too far off when they said that the eyes were the window to one's soul. It didn't matter if you believed that people had souls or not, the eyes were definitely a gateway into emotions that were not always evident on the surface. However currently, Edward had his eyes closed and his face was quite impassive and yet I felt his devastation, I was experiencing his hurt as if it were my own and I felt my own eyes fill with tears that I quickly blinked back lest I wanted to spend even more time in the makeup chair.

Maybe it was my connection to the story; maybe it was my connection to Edward, but whatever the hell it was, I felt as if I was in his mind during that scene and I saw everything through his eyes. It took me a while to get my bearings when I heard Sue yell cut. Alice and Tyler had been brilliant too and as a viewer, I was completely lost in the world that all three of them had created. I stayed to watch the third take, filmed from a different angle, only then really noticing the changes in Edward's appearance. Even though I had seen his unshaven look this morning, the makeup people must have darkened his facial hair to emphasise it; he looked as if he hadn't shaved in a week. There were dark circles under his eyes that I hadn't been aware of even when he had walked out of the makeup trailer, but maybe that was because someone was busy sticking individual eyelashes onto my own. The effect of the whole thing made him look older, much more affected and definitely darker; much more like the artist that had lost a huge part of his world. I couldn't help but think about the reaction of the millions of women that would potentially see this film; Edward, in this role, would definitely fulfil the role of tortured artist in their fantasies.

They were halfway through the fourth take when someone from wardrobe came looking for me, demanding that I go in to try my costume in case there were any last minute alterations that needed to be done before filming my scenes. I left Angela still watching the screens and followed dutifully behind the assistant, hoping that nothing needed altering and I could get in and out very quickly. There would probably be three more takes of the scene that they were currently doing, a small break for Edward to change his clothes and makeup and then we would film our first scene together. I couldn't wait.

*

"Wow," Edward's voice knocked me out of the stupor that I had found myself in whilst studying the newest copy of the script that had been handed out at the meeting this morning.

I turned around and smiled at him standing in the doorway of my trailer. "Hey," I greeted back. "What did you say?"

"I just expressed my amazement at how different you look," Edward explained. "Completely different but still you, you know?"

I laughed. "Kind of. I thought the same thing when I saw you shoot your scene earlier."

Edward's synthetically blue eyes widened in surprise and then he ducked his head at the same time as running his hands through his hair. "You watched us?"

I couldn't help the grin that spread across my face at his bashful display, so different from the confident and teasing demeanour he'd displayed this morning or the thoughtful manner he'd projected when we talked after the meeting. "Angela and I both did," I answered.

"Had nothing better to do then?" he guessed after a few more passes of his hands through his hair; someone was going to get in trouble with the makeup department if they weren't careful.

I chuckled. "Well it was either that or get more fake and plastic things stuck onto my body."

Edward looked up, directing his eyes to the hands I was waving in front of him and the eyelashes I was batting dramatically to emphasise my point. It was a good job that Kristen's hair in scenes I was going to be shooting within the first few weeks of filming was shorter than my own, otherwise I would have had to put on fake hair too. I really didn't understand how some women could wear all of this everyday and not get tired of it. Did they still feel like themselves underneath all the fake stuff? I had never felt the need to change my everyday appearance in this manner, but then again maybe that was because I spent so much time being someone else onset that it was a relief to be myself when I went about my everyday life.

Edward nodded. "Ah, I get it," he said smiling. "Stuck between a rock and a hard place, huh?"

"Something like that," I agreed with a laugh. I moved my legs over so that there was ample room for him to sit down with me. Edward however, didn't get the silent invitation and instead still stood at the doorway, neither fully inside nor fully outside. I shook my head and gave him a pointed look. "You can come in you know," I told him. "I won't bite."

Edward cocked his eyebrow at me as a mischievous light shone from his eyes. "Now don't go making rash declarations like that Bella. You never know when the need will overtake you." Edward's voice had taken on a completely different tone that I hadn't heard before. It was light and teasing, but at the same time it was sincere and very, very weighted. So much so in fact that I found it a little hard to expand my chest enough to take a proper breath for just a moment.

It took me a while to recover, by which time he'd already sat down just inches from my newly relocated feet, thumbing through the script that I had laid down upon his arrival. "You really were great in that scene," I said after another moment of trying to find coherent words in my head. I didn't know what to say back to Edward or what to make of what he'd said in the first place, so I just put it to the back of my mind, promising myself that I'd revisit it when I had more time to dwell and examine the situation from a variety of angles like the teenage girl that I hadn't identified myself being for a long time.

Edward looked up from studying the pieces of paper and smirked at me knowingly. It was obvious that I was changing the subject drastically (it's not like I was even capable of being subtle about it) and it was obvious that Edward may have suspected why. He studied me for longer than necessary, his eyes seemingly trying to probe into my consciousness for answers that I didn't think I had for myself, never mind for him. I was a little thankful, as he continued to look at me, that he still had contacts on. Robert's eyes were soulful, I'm sure, but Edward's eyes were...well, I was just glad that I was looking into blue instead of the sea-green of my good friend's irises.

"Thanks," he said finally, his eyes flicking over onto something else to give me a reprieve. "I was kind of nervous about all the close-ups that Sue said she was going to shoot. There's really no hiding when you're the only thing in the frame of the shot."

"You didn't need to hide Edward. You nailed it in both the takes that I watched." If it had been another actor, I maybe would have thought twice about stroking their ego so much, but Edward really did not have one when it came to his acting, which I thought was not only refreshing, but incredibly endearing. It wasn't like he was annoying about it; he wasn't whining or anything, he just didn't see what everyone else seemed to. Edward was kind of a natural at the whole thing; he was very instinctual and his instincts were mostly always right – from what I'd seen and experienced anyway.

"Thanks," he repeated, an unabashedly pleased smile lighting up his somewhat already notable features. "So...are you ready for our big scene?"

Even though we had four scenes to shoot together that day and every single scene between our characters would be considered 'big' in terms of how they affected the story, I knew that Edward was referring to the scene that he had used as his first audition. The writers had loved how he'd changed it so much that they mostly kept it as he had performed it on that day. There was some more dialogue put in here and there and some of the stage directions were a little different to how we had acted out the scene when we first met, but the essence was the same. The pressure was kind of on for that scene – more so than the others today – because the cast had already seen us perform it once and Sue had already seen it once so we had to keep doing it _better_ than the previous time. It would please and amuse no one if when the time came to put it on film, we couldn't get the same emotions across as the other times and neither I nor Edward wanted to disappoint.

I shrugged. "As ready as I can be, I guess. You?"

Edward nodded. "Though I'm still not sure about them giving me free rein on what I play as you come in."

"Have you already written it?" He hadn't told me about it if he had and I was rather amazed that he found the time to have done so without my knowing; what with the two of us spending so much time together and all. In a _friendly_ way, of course. My mind started to conjure up images from Friday night, as if to argue about the term I had used, but I quickly shook them away before they could become fully formed.

Edward shook his head in front of me in the present. "I'm going to just wing it," he informed me. "I need to really get into the moment for me to write something that'll be appropriate, so I'll do the scene and have them play it back to me. I already cleared it with Sue."

"I'm sure whatever you come up with will be great Edward," I reassure him sincerely. Edward not only had a life-changing voice, but he played beautifully. If he was captivating as an actor, he was enrapturing when he played.

"It's not really finding the music that I'm dubious about," he explained. "I just don't know whether what I come up with can capture the moment. Having never been in the position Rob is within the scene, I don't know whether what I can come up with can really express his mindset." Edward let out a frustrated breath and threw the script he had been fiddling with to the side. "I mean I know that we're actors and that's what we're supposed to do all the time, but it's different with music, you know? You can't fake that."

I would have argued with him and told him that there were several people that faked music, but I understood that he didn't mean the supposed music that flooded much of the charts these days; he meant music a true musician would play when they weren't being pressured by managers, record companies or fans. Edward meant that you couldn't fake music that was supposed to come from – for want of a better word – the soul and that was exactly what this piece was supposed to be. The start of the scene consisted of Robert playing in an empty room to purge some of his emotions and thoughts; if one had never experienced those emotions then it was going to be a challenge to compose something that communicated them to the rest of the world.

I sat quietly for a minute, thinking about how I could help him through this process, but not really knowing anything about it myself. I played the guitar like an amateur and I would never make the claim of being a musician, but I had plenty of experience in trying to find a way to portray something that I didn't think I could identify with; something that I could only barely understand.

"I take it you've never loved someone so much that you thought you'd die without them?" I questioned, though I suspected the answer already.

Edward confirmed my thoughts when he shook his head in the negative. "I don't even think I've come close to anything like that. I _thought_ I'd been in love before, but really what I experienced and what I'm sort of experiencing now, through these characters are worlds apart."

"Yeah," I agreed before I could stop myself. "I know exactly what you mean." Our eyes met in the few feet between us and something was communicated that I couldn't even begin to guess at, though Edward seemed to be able to translate our silent communication better than I could because his eyebrows furrowed and a look of wonder passed across his face. I looked away and tried to gather my thoughts again so that I could pick up my previous train of thought.

"Well then what's the worst loss you've ever had?" The question was rhetorical because there was a time to get into the heavy personal stuff and this was not it; not when we had to be onset in ten minutes. "You said yourself that Rob feels like he's not only lost her, but lost the very foundations of himself and what he believes in. You identify with the feeling so well when you're acting Edward, like you know exactly where that place is."

I looked up to find Edward staring at something that only he could see, his face impassive as he undoubtedly stirred old memories in response to what I was saying to him. "It's not the same," he told me after a few moments of silence that was neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, but just _was_. "I can kind of identify with having everything you thought you knew turned completely on its head and my interpretation of that on camera can be taken as conveying Rob's own emotions, but the notes in my head about my own experiences are not the right notes for his."

I sighed heavily. It was worth a shot, I guess, but I really didn't know anything about the process of writing music other than the fact that for some people it was a truly personal and cathartic experience. No two musicians will write the same piece of music even if they have the same life experiences because no two people feel the same way about the things they'd seen and done or the people that had been in their lives. Edward was not only a fan of Robert's music, but he was also a musician himself and so he was far more sensitive to this than I would have been; probably even more than Sue or anyone from the studio was.

"Be him," I blurted out suddenly, surprising both of us with the volume and authority in my voice. "Don't imagine yourself in his shoes – wear them. Don't try to identify with his emotions using your own life experiences – live his." I didn't really understand what the hell I was saying, but some part of me must have been sure that this was the right way to go because I could hear the conviction in my tone as I said the words. "Don't _act_ like you're Robert, just _be_ him."

"When you look at me, don't think that I'm your friend Bella acting like the woman that your character is supposed to be in love with. Look at me and see the woman you are incomprehensibly in love with; the woman that you would lay your life down for and that would lay down her life for you. Look into my eyes and see that I'm so deeply in love with you that I can't even remember who I was or what my life was like before you became a part of it." I had moved closer to him without being conscious of doing so and my voice was far too loud for the small space between us, so I dropped it to a more suitable level as I looked right at him and placed my hand on his arm. "Don't think about it Edward, just _feel_ it."

I didn't even have time to blink before the already tiny space between Edward and I became the very opposite of the word and instead of counselling him on how to just feel something, I was forced to take my own advice.

And what a feeling it was.

* * *

A/N: If anyone is still reading this story, I can only say that I am genuinely sorry for the incredibly long wait for this chapter. There aren't any excuses and the simple explanation is that I got far too busy with real life for a while there. I'm just incredibly sorry, I really, really am. Hopefully the next chapter will be along within the next two weeks, but my schedule is all over the place and I can't really plan a time to write.

Just an FYI...the end of this chapter took me completely by surprise too. I had planned out this moment from about chapter 12 and this was not the moment that I had in mind, but the story and the characters had a mind of their own and so...yeah...you just read the results.


	29. Chapter 29 Actions and Reactions

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 29: EPOV**

Some people say that your life is defined by the choices you make and the actions you take; I would have to both agree and disagree. I think that life is defined by how you chose to react to something out of your control; to things that you would not have chosen to happen. What happened in Bella's trailer this morning wasn't exactly what I would have chosen to happen – or no, maybe that's not exactly it because goodness knows I _couldn't_ have chosen anything else in that moment. No, what I mean was that I wouldn't have chosen that exact situation for what happened to take place. After having told Carmen just his morning that I was not mistaking fantasy with reality, I do something extremely suggestive of that with Bella. I was a god damn idiot. There was no other word to describe me at that very moment in time. After weeks and weeks of carefully – and sometimes forcefully – talking myself out of doing anything rash or stupid, I do something that could definitely be interpreted as both. I could see Rosalie's response if I told her the story of what had happened earlier today. There would be the characteristic eye roll, the disbelieving laughter and the use of the words 'bloody plonker' – in that exact sequence. Jasper would probably just shake his head in exasperation and pity, leaving me to feel like some loser who couldn't do anything right; not that this was too far from the truth anyway.

I threw my head back, banging it against the rather hard back of the sofa, but that was the point; maybe I could knock some sense into myself.

*

_The word 'wow' had come out of my mouth before I could really think about what saying it might be taken to mean. I hadn't even really fully thought of the word before it was out there for Bella to hear and react to. The thing was, that was the only word to describe how I felt when I saw her sitting down in her trailer her hair loosely tied up with tendrils coming out at random places. She had her head bent, eyes studying the rather large collection of papers in front of her, her teeth worrying her lip absent-mindedly as she concentrated. Even though she had been made up to look much more like Kristen, what she was doing was so typically Bella that I couldn't see the character imposed onto her at all. Neither the carefree party-girl nor the heartbroken shell of a woman that Bella would portray throughout the course of the film would have been in a setting such as this one in front of me. But Bella would be; Bella had been many times before and thinking about the times we'd both been sitting much like this made me smile._

_It must have been my good mood that made me lose control of my mouth and the word was uttered out before I could stop it. That was my excuse anyway and I was absolutely sticking to it._

_Bella looked up and smiled up at me and again the same sentiment that had escaped my mouth before echoed in my head. If Carmen could see into my head right now she'd probably send someone to New York to 'keep me in line'. "Hey," Bella greeted, closing the script that she had been poring over just seconds before. "What did you say?"_

_I was both understandably relieved and inexplicably disappointed that she hadn't heard what I'd said, though I didn't want to examine my latter reaction too carefully. I had more pressing matters to attend to right now – like what I was going to say to her that wouldn't just be a repeat of what I'd just let slip. The only thing I could come up was some asinine comment about how she looked like her, but also different and how amazed I was at the transformation. You would have thought I didn't know what an actor was with my response and if I could have smacked myself in the head without attracting attention to the act, I would have done it._

_Bella, however didn't seem to be holding my idiocy against me and she actually laughed whilst agreeing with me. "I thought the same thing when I saw you shoot earlier."_

_I was slightly horrified at the thought of her watching me shooting the scene; I thought she would have been busy with wardrobe or makeup or something. It didn't even cross my mind that she would have the time to actually watch me, but now that I knew she had, I was nervous as hell to find out what she actually thought about it, though I would never actually _ask_ her. I didn't want her to feel like I was some needy amateur, always seeking her approval for everything I did. It wasn't like that anyway; I just...well, I wanted Bella to admire me? God that sounded so fucking ridiculous, but the girl was amazing at what we did and I didn't want her to feel like I would be the weak link in our partnership. I _knew_ that Bella didn't actually think this and when we were acting _together_ I didn't really have any of these thoughts, but her watching me acting on my own or with someone else was a different thing all together. She had chance to objectively judge me then and I absolutely did not want to be found lacking in Bella's eyes – in any way._

"_You watched us?" I couldn't look at her, for fear of seeing disappointment on her face. _

"_Angela and I both did," she confirmed. _

_It didn't really make me less anxious to know that someone else had been watching with her, but it didn't add any to the irrational fear I had about Bella watching me. I could feel myself running my hands through my hair and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that someone would be pissed off that I was ruining Robert's carefully constructed hairstyle. (I had found out earlier that getting hair to look as if you hadn't done anything to it took a _lot_ of time). However, that thought was barely formed before my mouth was once again forced to say some rather meaningless words so that Bella wouldn't see that I was actually a needy amateur pretending to be a real actor. _

"_Well it was either that or get more fake and plastic things stuck onto my body." Bella's reply caused me to look up from studying the pattern of the carpet lining her trailer for several reasons. Firstly, she had mentioned her body, which automatically caused me to sweep my eyes quickly over the subject of the sentence. Secondly, she was waving her hands around in front of her and batting her eyelashes in a ridiculously dramatic way that I had never seen Bella do before. Lastly I didn't actually understand her response to what I'd said because I didn't remember what I'd said; I hadn't been paying attention. It took me a while to figure out why her response would be coupled with the strange gestures and from there I could work out more or less what I'd said to her. _

_I nodded when I finally put it all together, confirming it for myself more than Bella. "Ah, I get it. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, huh?" Obviously she had thought that staying to watch the scene was the lesser of two evils and I could only hope that she still held that view _after_ she'd witnessed the filming._

_Bella laughed, agreeing with me. I couldn't help marvel at the sight of Bella relaxed, laughing and completely in her element; she seemed like she felt more at home on a movie set than anywhere else in the world. I guessed that she'd spent rather a good chunk of her life in trailers not too dissimilar to the one she was occupying now. Even with all the artificial 'enhancements' that she had complained about, Bella was all I could see as she moved over on the small sofa-type contraption and invited me inside with a comment about not biting._

_Now I can't exactly blame a lack of thought for the next words out of my mouth because even though they were almost a reflex response to what she had said, I knew exactly what I was doing. The image of Bella biting her lip in a very different situation to what we had found ourselves in during any of the other times we'd hung out flashed in my mind and nothing but a freight train running over me could have stopped what I had to say right in that moment._

"_Now don't go making rash declarations like that Bella," I resisted the urge to rake my eyes over her body because I didn't want to make it _too_ obvious what was on my mind. "You never knew when the need will overtake you." Well, there goes the plan of not making my sexually explicit thoughts about my 19 year-old co-star too obvious. I don't even know why I try to come up with plans; I obviously suck at sticking to them._

_The silence was absolute in the trailer. I held my breath waiting for Bella to do or say something that would give me a clue about how she had taken what had come out of my mouth. There was no way on earth that she didn't understand my meaning and there was little chance of her taking it as a joke. I guess both of us could have passed it off as a joke _if_ my tone of voice didn't suggest that I was just a little more than serious. I knew Bella heard the difference from the teasing tone that both of us had employed earlier that morning; what I didn't know was how she would respond. Would she tell me that I was out of line? Would she ignore it? Would she slap me across the face and tell me to get out of her trailer? In my most rational state of mind, I would have completely rejected the last option because I _knew_ that the whole thing with Bella wasn't just one sided on my end. However, the silence around us was stifling my ability to think like a rational human being and I was on the verge of laughing loudly and pretending like I didn't mean any of it serious; pretend like I didn't want Bella in the physical sense. _

_Then it hit me; there was _complete_ silence in the space around us. There was no noise coming from me because I had stopped breathing in anticipation of an answer. But if there was no noise then I wasn't the only one to have stopped inhaling and exhaling. I looked at Bella closely and noticed that her chest wasn't moving up and down like normal and she had a somewhat glazed look in her eyes, which were directed forwards, but didn't seem to be taking anything in. Bella was reacting like she was affected by my words – and not in a negative way at all. _

_Suddenly air rushed into my lungs and I grinned so widely that I was sure my face would split open. It definitely wasn't one sided. I took her invitation to come in and perched myself just beyond where her feet were, picking up the script that she had discarded only a few minutes before and pretending to be studying it as I waited for her to take the lead about where the conversation should go now; I would follow however she chose to handle the situation._

"_You really were great in that scene," she croaked out a few moments after I had sat down. I tried to hide the smirk that formed at the fact that she still hadn't fully recovered from what I'd said. Any man who tells you that it's not the biggest ego boost in the world to know that you can render a woman incoherent with well-spoken words is a fucking liar; it felt fantastic. _

_However, I didn't know what to think or feel about Bella choosing to pretend like the whole exchange never happened. I was kind of relieved because she wasn't asking any questions I was uncomfortable giving answers to, but I was also kind of disappointed because I was curious to see where it could have led. I lifted my head to look at her, wondering if I could somehow get a hint of the things she wasn't saying. She was looking at me herself, her eyes a flurry of confusion and a variety of other emotions that were too quickly passing for me to really read. I didn't know what I was looking for in her gaze, but whatever it was I found it because I could feel myself relaxing a little, almost breathing a sigh of relief, though from what, I didn't yet know. _

_It was I who broke eye contact first, looking at something just over her shoulder as I thanked her for her praise. "I was kind of nervous about all the close-ups that Sue said she was going to shoot," I confessed to her, allowing our conversation to stay on much safer, less demanding topics. "There's really no hiding when you're the only thing in the frame of the shot."_

"_You didn't need to hide Edward," she assured me and I felt her shift slightly as she spoke so that her legs were no longer between us, but dangling off the side of the sofa instead. "You nailed it in both the takes that I watched." Her tone and her expression were so sincere that I couldn't doubt she actually thought exactly what she'd voiced. It made me embarrassingly happy that she really thought I had done a good job because even though she was younger than me in terms of life experience, in the business, her career was light years ahead of mine. _

"_Thanks," I repeated, having nothing else to say that could encompass what I was really feeling right then. I asked her if she was prepared for the big scene that we had to shoot in just a few minutes, trying to find a way to avoid gushing about how happy I was that she really thought I had put in a good performance; I didn't want to turn her off by acting like the biggest loser on the planet just when we seemed to be getting somewhere beyond the limits of friendship._

"_As ready as I can be," she replied. "You?"_

_I was nervous as hell actually, but then that wouldn't have been news to her and really, I didn't want to spend more time with her trying to boost my, admittedly, very fragile ego. There was, however, an added reason for me to be nervous about this particular scene; I was expected to actually compose the musical background/ introduction to the scene. I had only been aware of their wish for me to do this for about four days, all of which were spent in my trying to get them to change their mind. I sort of mentioned my concern to Bella without going into the details of how I had been trying to find a way out of the arrangement._

"_Have you already written it?" she asked, even though she spent enough time with me to guess that I hadn't. Bella had been the first person I told when they asked me to do it, but unlike me she had been completely excited about the prospect._

"_I'm just going to wing it," my voice and my words were nonchalant, which were a complete contrast to what I was actually feeling and I think Bella probably suspected as much. I went on to explain to her what conditions I needed to actually be able to write something that would do the mood of the scene justice. _

_Bella, as ever, was trying to instil me with confidence in my own abilities; something that she must have been getting sick of. Honestly, even I was getting sick of all the self-doubt that I seemed to pour out in her presence when we were talking about anything to do with work; it was a wonder that Bella still spoke to me. _

"_It's not really finding the music that I'm dubious about," I tried to explain, trying to tell her that it wasn't my ability to play that had me worried. It wasn't even really about my ability to write a good piece of music; I'd been playing and composing for years. It was the raw feel of the music that I was worried about. In order to really play something that portrayed an emotion that someone had felt, one needs to have felt the same thing. Anyone with enough musical training and background knows the difference between a composer playing a piece and someone who had been taught to play a piece – the nuances and accents were different because people interpret music differently. The thing was, I didn't want this piece of music to jar with anything else in the film and though a lot of people probably wouldn't have noticed, as a fan of Robert's music myself, I would have noticed._

_Bella was thoughtful for a moment as I struggled to express what I was actually worried about. She seemed as if she was thinking of a way to help me solve my problem, which she probably was because that was the kind of person she was. Really, it was kind of the way our relationship worked; she helped me out with my professional demons and I tried my best to put her personal ones into perspective. We really were quite a pair, Bella and I. That thought made me smile even though it probably shouldn't have._

"_I take it you've never loved someone so much that you thought you'd die without them?" she asked. It was unusual for her to allude to my previous relationships, just as I never brought Jacob up unless she had mentioned him first. _

_I shook my head. I guess in most normal definitions of the word, I had been in love with Claire; we shared a life together, of course I loved her. However if I compared how I felt about Claire – even during the exciting infancy of our relationship – with how Robert had been described to feel about Kristen, it was _nothing_; it paled in comparison. I enjoyed being with Claire and at some point in time I could see some sort of future with her, but I could also see my life carrying on without her – as I was proving. There was no obsessive need to have her with me always; no all-consuming passion and desire that blocked reason and logic to the point of having to question my mental stability. _

"_I _thought_ I'd been in love before, but really what I experienced and what I'm sort of experiencing now," there was an infinitesimal pause in my words that should not have been there, but somehow was. I swallowed, my eyes flicking over to where Bella was sitting down, listening to me seemingly having not noticed the silent space that words should have occupied. Good. "...through these characters, are worlds apart." _

_Some small part of my mind was screaming at me about the fact that I had stopped speaking before I qualified that I was actually talking about the characters that were in the movie, but I tried like hell to ignore it. It wasn't easy because the voice was extremely loud and waking up other parts of my consciousness with the possibility that I hadn't actually been talking _just_ about the character that I was playing._

_Bella was saying something about agreeing with me, but I wasn't really listening because my mind was occupied in a war with itself. What the hell did that pause mean? Did I just want to take a breath before carrying on with the rest of that perfectly innocuous sentence? That must have been it because there was no way that I was telling Bella that I hadn't felt with my previous girlfriend of three years a fraction of what I felt when I was around her; no damn way. I couldn't even get to grips with the fact that I'd even thought about it – even if it was only momentarily; I wouldn't be able to actually handle the possibility of her finding out what had passed through my mind a few seconds ago._

"_Well then what's the worst loss you've ever had?" Bella's serious question brought me back from the rambling conversation I'd been having with myself in my own head. It took me a while to snap my mind back to the conversation we'd been having (not for the first time in the last ten minutes), but when I finally understood what she was trying to get out of me, I instantly flashed back to being sixteen and watching my Mom getting taken away by strangers. However, Bella obviously didn't expect me to actually give her an answer because she was speaking again before I'd even had time to think._

"_You said yourself that Rob feels like he's not only lost her, but lost the very foundations of himself and what he believes in," Bella repeated to me. "You identify with the feeling so well when you're acting Edward, like you know exactly where that place is."_

_That was because I did. I could definitely identify with feeling like everything you thought knew was wrong; like everything in your life had been a complete and utter farce. I could identify with that general feeling of loss, but not the specific feeling of having your heart wrenched out of your chest. I couldn't express how it felt to have the very thing that defined love for you taken away, not with notes. Everyone's experienced a piece of music that really speaks to them; that takes them back to a specific point in their lives so clearly it was almost as if they had gone back in time. Music that does that speaks to the emotions and the memories that you associate with that specific time and it does that because the person who wrote the piece had been in the same place – metaphorically speaking of course. _

_I tried to express this to Bella, but probably just came out sounding like a god damn music elitist or something. Maybe I was over-thinking this whole thing, but I didn't want this to stand out from the rest of the music in the film. The story was as much about Robert's music as it was about the love that he and Kristen shared; each was a different part of the entire person. _

"_Be him!" Bella's sudden instruction made me start a little, directing my attention back on her instead of the circles that I was taking around myself. "Don't imagine yourself in his shoes – wear them. Don't identify with his motions using your own life experiences – live his. Don't _act_ like you're Robert, just _be_ him."_

_I was confused by what she was saying; I couldn't just _be_ someone. It may have seemed like the most simple and obvious answer in the world, but the practicalities of carrying it out were anything but. I opened my mouth to ask her just how she proposed I implemented her advice, but Bella was on a roll and she just kept talking, her eyes shining with conviction._

"_When you look at me, don't think that I'm your friend Bella acting like the woman that your character is supposed to be in love with. Look at me and see the woman you are incomprehensibly in love with; the woman that you would lay your life down for and that would lay down her life for you." Bella's voice was full of passion and belief, pressing me to take her advice, to follow her instructions. Her face was alight with victory, as if she thought that she had finally given me the key to solving my problem and she was damn proud of herself for doing so._

_And maybe she had; because when I looked at Bella right then I could absolutely empathise with the feeling of being mesmerised by someone's mere presence. Bella – with her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed and passion almost radiating from her – was a sight to behold. I had absolutely no problem in looking at her through the eyes of an enamoured man. I swallowed thickly as she moved closer to me, her still brown eyes locking with mine._

"_Look into my eyes and see that I am so deeply in love with you that I can't even remember who I was or what my life was like before you became a part of it." Bella's voice had dropped almost to a whisper and her face was mere inches from mine. I could feel her breath on my face and my eyes didn't know whether to keep looking into hers or flick down to her mouth so that I could see her lips move to form the words that were giving me permission to do something I probably shouldn't do. _

"_Don't think about it Edward, just _feel_ it."_

_My body was moving to cover the already small space between us before I could even fully comprehend what she said; before I could even second-guess what I was about to do. One moment I was looking into Bella's eyes as she tried to convince me of her method of finding the right music and the next, everything that we'd been speaking of had disappeared. One moment I could feel Bella's breath on my skin and the next I was sharing it; mixing it with my own._

*

Well, I had definitely taken her words to heart.

Fuck.

I didn't know what the hell came over me. Well no, that's a complete lie. What came over me was the fact that I was a man who had been attracted to the woman in front of him since her first met her. What came over me was the fact that I was sick of fighting against myself – against whatever was happening with Bella. What came over me was the acute need to just let everything go and _feel_.

Maybe I wouldn't have felt so fucking terrible about the whole thing if it had ended naturally and Bella and I had time to talk about it after (however awkward that was guaranteed to have been). It would have been infinitely better, I'm sure, than having someone from the crew interrupt us by knocking on Bella's trailer door quite vigorously and shouting that we had to be on set to film stat. We just about had time to pull ourselves apart, smooth down our clothes and run our hands through our hair so that it didn't look like we'd been making out when we were supposed to have been getting ready to shoot. Still, if anyone had observed the way we walked beside each other to the location we were shooting the scene, they would have probably guessed that _something_ had happened. Bella and I were walking side by side trying to not touch but not moving far enough away from each other to be completely sure that we wouldn't.

The entire time we were walking, I was racking my brain for something – _anything_ – to say to her. I wanted to explain to her why I'd done what I'd done, but all I could think of to say was that I'd done it because I had been wanting to for longer than I was willing to admit – even to myself. I couldn't apologise for doing it because I wasn't sorry I'd done it, not when I finally got to experience what it was like to kiss _Bella_; not Bella as someone else, but just Bella. It was a heady experience that I didn't want to apologise or excuse away, but nor did I want to put a strain on our friendship. I'd screwed myself over – totally and completely – but I couldn't find it in myself to wish that it had never happened at all. How could I when it had been so much more than I had expected.

I had thought about what it would be like to kiss Bella outside of a scene before and I always figured it would be pretty much like it was kissing her when I was Robert, but I was so very wrong. _Everything_ was different; not just the fact that we weren't being watched by at least a dozen people. There's always a level of awareness of what you're doing when you're doing a scene with someone; there has to be. You both have to be aware of where your hands go, of where the camera is capturing the scene from, of which way to tilt your head or how to make it look as if you're doing a lot more than you actually are. When I kissed Bella in her trailer, the only thing that I was aware of was the fact that it was _Bella_. Finally, after weeks of being close enough so that I could get a small preview as to what this moment would be like, I was living it and it was so much _more_. More than what, I didn't know; it was just more.

I kissed Bella without abandon and the best thing was that she had been kissing me back. There wasn't a single moment during the time our lips were interlocked that she had been unresponsive. As soon as my mouth touched the soft, plump pink of hers, she had moved with me. There was nothing going through my head the whole time apart from the word _finally_. It wasn't until after, when we had been interrupted and I finally regained use of my brain that I could have used every single clichéd word under the sun to describe what I felt and none of them would still have been enough. It wasn't electricity, it wasn't fire, and it wasn't a blinding realisation that this was what we should have been doing the entire time. What it was, was like looking out over a cliff into the ocean just before you dive in; there was a certain sense of calm and peace before the chaos and the adrenaline. It was an amazing feeling – one that makes you understand the very essence of life whilst never really being able to put words to it.

However with the regaining of my mental faculties, I also regained the ability to worry about what the hell this now meant. I'd kissed her and she'd kissed me back, but was she just caught up in the moment? Was it just a knee-jerk reaction to our close proximity, our familiarity and her own excitement in the moment? I didn't want to think that it was and I was almost certain that it wasn't, but I couldn't be sure and this was the only thing wrong with the entire situation. I had thought that when Bella and I really kissed for the first time, some of the ambiguous nature of our relationship would have been cleared up, but that wasn't the case. I still hadn't really told her that I wanted more than friendship from her – for us. She still hadn't really confirmed that she wanted the same thing and what was more she was still technically in a relationship.

She still technically had a _boyfriend_. A boyfriend that she had been in a relationship with for years and who she had known for longer still. A boyfriend that she had a hard time even taking a break from.

The logical part of me remembered that Bella was having doubts about her relationship. She had all but confessed that she hadn't loved Jacob like maybe he loved her or she _should_ have loved him. It was only earlier today that she had said she'd never loved someone with as much passion and devotion as the characters in the movie. But that didn't mean she didn't still love him. Of course she loved him; she'd said so herself. She was still in a quasi-relationship with a guy who wasn't a jerk and I'd all but forced myself on her this afternoon when she was trying to help me.

God I was such a screw up!

"If I have to see you hit yourself like that again, I'm going to assume that you want to be hit and I'll join in," Rosalie's voice broke through my self-recrimination.

I opened my eyes to find my best friend standing over me, her face a mixture of amusement, concern and confusion. I moved so that I was no longer seeing her upside down, but she was also in transit, finally settling herself into the chair on my right.

"I take it shooting didn't go too well today?" Rosalie guessed.

"Huh?" I said stupidly because apparently thinking about the whole Bella situation had pushed the major motion picture that we were shooting to the back of my head.

Rosalie looked at me like with a frankly bewildered expression on her face. "Er, the Hollywood film that you're starring in," she explained slowly, as if she were talking to a particularly slow child. "You know, the reason that you're in New York right now."

I shook my head to clear it of the memory of the tentative touch of Bella's tongue against my own. I couldn't focus on the conversation when my thoughts were going from reliving the kiss I'd shared with Bella to listing all the reasons why I shouldn't have kissed Bella yet. "Filming was fine Rose," I said. "Great, actually."

"And yet you sound like I've just asked you about the state of the economy in California."

"It's nothing," I told her. "I'm just distracted."

"By _something_, I'm guessing," Rosalie persisted.

I let out a long, frustrated breath, knowing that I was going to tell Rose. I needed to talk to someone about it and if I couldn't talk to my best friend, there was no one else I could talk to. Besides, Rosalie would give me some desperately needed advice.

"I kissed Bella." I said plainly, watching her face carefully for any sort of reaction.

The only thing about Rosalie's expression that indicated she had heard me was her widened eyes. "And?" she probed, not really understanding why I was trying to literally knock some sense into myself when she'd walked in.

"And we got interrupted and spent the rest of our time together being with other people, _being_ other people, _not_ talking about it," I explained. "And she still has a god damn boyfriend."

"Only in the technical sense," Rosalie interjected.

"A _technical_ boyfriend is still a boyfriend Rosalie." I made a noise that was a cross between a groan and snort. I just didn't know what the hell I was going to do. I wanted to talk to Bella, but I had no idea what to actually say. I thought we would have the drive back to the apartment to talk alone, but Alice had asked her to stay after our last scene together and I hadn't spoken to her since; I had no idea whether she was even back at her apartment.

"What do you want from her Ed?" Rosalie asked, bringing up the hard issues like only she could.

I shrugged, but then caught Rosalie's sceptical gaze and raised eyebrow and just told her the truth. I really wanted Bella. It was as simple as that. I really thought that Bella and I could be great together. I spent the entire day with the woman and I still wanted to spend more time with her. She made me laugh, made my head spin, left me feeling totally confused and frustrated, but any time I was around her I was happy. Being around Bella left me with a feeling of clarity and contentment that I hadn't found even when I was searching for it half way across the world. All the decisions I'd made in my life, bad or good, didn't seem to weight on me as much because it had gotten me to a point in my life where I'd met a girl who just got it. Whatever the hell _it_ was about me to get, Bella understood it in a way that even I couldn't and really wasn't that what everyone was looking for? Didn't people spend their lives wishing that someone just understood all the things about themselves that they couldn't? I wouldn't be so cliché as to say that I felt as if Bella completed me; it wasn't like that. It was just that with her I saw myself as other people saw me, not as I saw myself.

Yet as simple as my wanting Bella was; as black and white as it all seemed, there were so many shades of grey in between that it was masking the simplicity. In an ideal world, I would make up my mind to win the girl, she would run into my arms and the credits would roll as we rode off into the sunset together. But real life didn't work that way. There were other things to consider besides how I felt about her or how I thought she may have felt about me in return and it was those things that were echoing around in my head, mocking me for the rashness that I had displayed earlier in the day.

"Edward?" Rosalie asked again after I hadn't answered her.

"I don't know Rose," I told her. "Right now I just want to be able to talk to her and see whether or not I've completely fucked this whole thing up before it could even get off the ground."

Rosalie shook her head. "If she didn't slap you, punch you and knee you when you kissed her I'm willing to put money on the fact that you haven't fucked anything up. I know I say this a lot and it may have lost all meaning by now, but you really need to stop giving yourself such a hard time."

I nodded, though we both knew that I wouldn't stop thinking about what had happened and berating myself for letting the situation get out of hand. Rose started asking me questions about the shoot, but I could barely give her one word answers because my mind was so wholly occupied with something else. Finally, after trying to pull a conversation out of me for ten minutes, Rosalie gave up and went into her bedroom (because really, she'd been staying there longer than I had), leaving me to sit alone without anything to distract me from the very loud conflict happening in my head.

*

**BPOV**

Overwhelming guilt was bearing down upon me like a living, breathing entity and I couldn't get away from it. To some extent I welcomed it because it was the least I deserved for not feeling the right kind of guilt. I was kind of happy that I was at least exchanging one form of guilt for another instead of not feeling any at all because that meant I wasn't too bad of a person right? Oh fuck, who the hell was I kidding? I was sitting across from a friend of mine who I'd been lying to for at least a couple of weeks, not really being able to think about anything apart from the fact that only hours before, I was kissing Edward Cullen. I had both kissed Edward already and yet never kissed _Edward_ before late this morning and I was torn whether being happy that it happened or horrified that it had. Right now, I was kind of horrified about being happy that it had happened.

I was an awful person.

And to make matters infinitely worse, I couldn't even feel guilty about kissing Edward. I felt guilty about _not_ feeling guilty about it and felt guilty about wanting it to happen again, but I just couldn't find it in me to think that what had happened was wrong. I really wanted to; a pretty big part of me was screaming at me for being stupid enough to complicate an already complicated situation by sticking my tongue in a boy's mouth who wasn't my sort-of boyfriend. However, it was completely overwhelmed by the other part of me that was wondering what the hell had taken so long to get to the point where I was sharing the same saliva as Edward without it being covered up by the fact that we were supposed to be two completely different people.

I wouldn't say that Edward's lips touching mine was a surprise; I don't think it was. I think I knew that it would happen at some point – especially after Friday night. What I would say was that feeling Edward's lips touching my own when no one was watching us and neither of us was calling the other by a different name was something I could never adequately describe. It was like I'd been running up a hill for the couple of hours and finally I was standing on top of a mountain looking out over the vast expanse of land, with the wind swirling around me and the sun going down. It was beautiful and exhilarating and just...so _worth it_. There was a sense of freedom and joy and relief that I had never experienced from a kiss before. I hadn't thought that kissing Edward as Bella would be too different from my bring Kristen and kissing him as Robert. It shouldn't have been really and I couldn't really explain why it was, but it really, really was.

Of course all good things end and I'm pretty certain our kiss ended prematurely. I would have put money on the fact that had someone from the crew not banged on my door with instructions for me to get my ass on set, Edward and I would have been locked together for much longer than we actually were. I certainly didn't think I could have willed myself to pull away without an external force and from the way he was kissing me, I didn't think Edward could have either. Unfortunately, I'd never know because like a load of ice cold water being dumped over us, the banging and shouting brought us both back into the reality of the situation.

And the reality was that we had a film to shoot, he was my co-star, friend and something else that neither of us had really even tried to define and I still had a boyfriend.

So now, here I was, sitting opposite of Alice as she talked about something that I just couldn't follow. I was being eaten up by guilt and torn apart from the inside out with the knowledge that I wasn't feeling guilty for the right thing.

Great. Just how I wanted to spend my evening.

"Bella are you even listening to me?" Alice enquired, her voice full of frustration. I wondered how long she'd been trying to get a response from me.

"Sorry Alice," I said, shaking my head minutely and willing myself to get my ass into gear. "I was just..." I trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence with what had actually been on my mind and yet too slow to come up with anything else plausible. I guess alternately feeling guilty and wondering what else could have happened was keeping my brain too busy.

Alice's forehead wrinkled with a question about what I was just doing, but she didn't voice it, so I just smiled to indicate that I'd finished with my non-explanation and she was getting nothing else.

"I just told you that I think there's something going on with Jasper and some woman named Maria and your response was just to sit there with some creepy smile on your face," Alice said, clearly irritated that I hadn't been listening to her.

"Why would you think that?" I asked, completely ignoring the part of her sentence that concerned non-response the first time she'd given me this news.

Alice kept her disturbingly penetrating gaze on me for a moment too long, but then dropped it and let out a long sigh. "He got a call in the middle of the night last night and he checked that I was asleep before he answered it. Then when he was sure I was still asleep, he slipped into the next room to answer it."

That was it? Talk about jumping to conclusions. "He probably just didn't want to wake you," I offered as way of explanation.

"Yeah, that would have been my thoughts too if I hadn't overheard the practically whispered conversation."

"Overheard?" Somehow I doubted that anyone could 'overhear' a quiet conversation from another room unless they were purposely eavesdropping.

"Okay maybe I opened the door a little and tried my damned hardest to listen," Alice confessed hurriedly, but at least she looked a little ashamed at having to confess to doing something like that. "But then I heard him talking to someone called Maria about not being able to keep it a secret anymore; about not wanting to hurt me when I eventually found out."

My jaw dropped a little and my eyes widened. Okay, maybe Alice hadn't so much jumped to a conclusion, but been led there by the trail of Jasper's god damn lies. Was this what he'd been keeping from everyone? That he was seeing someone else? He sure as hell had me fooled if this was his secret; he'd had me convinced that he really cared about Alice and he was only lying to her to protect her. He'd said something about life and death for god's sake. Was he really this much of a fucking douche? I didn't want to think so; Edward thought so highly of him and I trusted Edward.

"Did you ask him about it?" I questioned, trying to stop myself from jumping to conclusions.

Alice scoffed. "What was I going to say? Hey Jasper I was eavesdropping on a conversation you were having and heard that you were lying to me? It doesn't exactly sound great does it?"

She had a point. "Why would you listen to him on the phone anyway Alice?" I asked her. It seemed a strange thing to do; pretending to be asleep and then listening to someone on the phone.

"He's been really weird with me recently," Alice explained, her voice matching the sadness on her face. "He's always saying he has errands to run at the oddest times and when I ask him what he's been up to whilst I've been shooting, he never gives me a real answer. It was fine at first, but I...I don't know. I just feel like there's something not right with Jasper."

Alice was obviously far too intuitive for anyone's good.

"What are you going to do?" If she couldn't ask him outright what the conversation was about, she had to have a plan. I didn't think Alice would take the possibility of being cheated on and lied to lying down.

Alice looked up at me, with uncertainty displayed in her dark blue eyes. "That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about Bella."

I didn't like the sound of her voice; at all. I didn't know what I could do in this situation other than be her shoulder to cry on, which I thought I was doing (albeit rather poorly). I eyed her curiously and I could see the hesitation in Alice's whole demeanour as she tried to find the words to explain to me how I fit in with her plans regarding Jasper.

"I kind of want you to talk to Edward-"

I was shaking my head before she even finished her sentence. "No way Alice," I refused. I needed to have an awkward conversation with Edward as it was, without adding the Alice and Jasper drama to it. "I'm not putting myself smack bang in the middle of this and I'm not dragging Edward into it either."

"Bella," Alice started, but I shook my head to stop her from continuing.

"Alice seriously what do you expect me to say to him?" I asked her. "I can't just be all like 'hey Edward is your friend cheating on mine?' Even if he knew do you honestly expect him to tell me?"

"I don't know what else to do Bella," Alice said, her voice laced with anguish and desperation. In fact, she looked like she was on the verge of breaking out in tears. This was a completely different side of the girl that I thought I knew and I didn't know what to do with this vulnerable Alice; hell I barely knew what to do with the strong, indestructible Alice. Obviously she was in deep with this whole Jasper thing.

"Maybe you should try talking to Edward yourself," I suggested half-heartedly knowing that she would never do that and Edward probably wouldn't be too willing to help her either.

Alice actually snorted at the idea almost as soon as the words left my mouth. "You really think he's going to tell me more than he'd tell you?" she laughed dryly. "I don't think he's going to be too willing to help out the girl that put a hand print on his cheek. Hell he probably knows and is laughing about it behind my back, thinking that it's just what I deserve for hitting him."

Although I knew she was hurting and a little too emotional to be rational or fair right now, I didn't like what Alice was implying about Edward's character. He may not have liked her, but Edward was not the type of guy to take pleasure from someone else's pain. He was a good guy and I didn't know exactly what Alice had against him that made her refuse to see that.

"Well he sure as hell won't help you with that kind of attitude," I told her, my tone harsher than it probably should have been given her state of mind.

Alice looked at me and seemed to realise her mistake immediately because she nodded her head and at least had the decency to look somewhat regretful of her outburst, if not in the least bit apologetic. "Bella, please, please do this for me," she all but begged.

I looked at her and sighed, knowing that I was getting involved with something I really didn't want to be involved in and something I _shouldn't_ have been involved in. Yet I wasn't going to deny Alice my help when it was obvious that she had no other options. I knew she didn't exactly like Edward so the fact that she was asking me to go to him for help on shedding light on this matter meant that she really was pretty desperate. I couldn't say no to her; not when she was on the verge of a breakdown and she was looking at me like I could solve all of her problems.

I placed my hand gently on her arm and told her that I'd do what I could, though I knew I wasn't going to ask Edward anything. Edward and I needed to have a serious conversation about our own relationship, not someone else's. However, I could definitely ask Jasper what the hell he was actually doing with Alice. After all, I was keeping his secret and I didn't want to be part of a cover up if the only thing I was hiding from my friend was the fact that her boyfriend was a cheating sum bag.

Alice's gratitude at my promise brought back the guilt ten-fold.

Oh hell.

*

10 o'clock.

It wasn't late, but when you had to be at work at 5 in the morning then 10 o'clock may as well have been the middle of the night. I should have been in bed, either asleep or at least _trying_ to get to sleep, but instead of being in my room in the land of unconscious oblivion, I was standing in front of an all too familiar wooden door, wondering whether I shouldn't just turn around and go back to my own apartment. I had been waiting all day for an opportunity to have this conversation and yet now that I was only moments from it – only _feet_ from _him_ – I was thinking about chickening out.

God, I was pathetic.

I was pathetic enough to turn around on the spot and head away from the door, from the conversation, from Edward. Or at least I thought I was walking away from Edward, but when actually happened when I turned the corner to use the stairs was that I walked straight _into_ Edward. I guess some things just couldn't be avoided.

"Shit I'm so sorry Bella," Edward offered me his hand to help me up from the fact that he'd knocked me on my ass for the second time.

I took it and allowed him to pull me up, trying to ignore the fact that the touch of Edward's hand now reminded me of the feel of his bottom lip between my own or the way his nose pressed into my skin slightly; it wasn't easy. I stood up and dusted myself off, not really worried about having gotten my clothes dirty, but just trying to find a way of not looking him in the eyes quite yet; I didn't know what the hell I would do if we made eye contact.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

I nodded my head and yet still didn't lift it enough so that I would have to look at his face. This was far more awkward than I could have imagined. Edward was in front of me and all I could think about was how when Edward had been in front of me this morning, he had been much closer. I took a deep breath and tried to steel myself for actually trying to have a conversation with him without seeming like I was thinking about kissing him.

I heard Edward exhale quickly above me and I knew that I wasn't the only one having a hard time right now; the thought made me feel better. "I just, um...I knocked on your door, but...er...obviously, um, you weren't...you were here so..."

I couldn't help the small chuckle that escaped from me when Edward had finally finished what he was attempting to say. It was so odd, being with him and feeling like I didn't know what to say or do with myself. We hadn't been this awkward around each other since we first met and I didn't know whether to find it funny or sad that it had come to this just when we'd given in to what had been threatening to happen for a while now.

I looked down at my feet, watching the way they moved as I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. I wanted to say something to Edward, but I didn't know what to say. I was afraid that if I looked at him and opened my mouth, I would blurt out something horrendously embarrassing. I felt like I was at a dance in middle school trying to work up the nerve to ask one of the boys on the other side of the room to dance on the empty space in the middle. I didn't exactly relish the feeling.

"Well I guess you'll want to, um, get back, er...go to your apartment," Edward stuttered out after minutes of my saying nothing. He sounded nervous and embarrassed and extremely disappointed; all feelings that my inability to raise my head, look at him and have a mature conversation – or hell any kind of conversation – was causing. "I should, er...just...I'm going to, um, go back."

I saw his feet withdraw a few paces from where they had been in relation to mine and it was only then that I finally found my voice. "Edward wait!"

I had finally raised my head and when I looked up I met his anxious and curious eyes – his _green_ eyes and I had to smile because it was somewhat of a comfort to look into the eyes of my friend. It was funny how just before he and I kissed, I was thanking the wardrobe department that his contacts were still in place and yet now I was happy just to see the green again.

"What did you want?" It was a stupid question and from the look on his face he knew that I was just asking it to say _something_ to him. I could have told him that I had been at his apartment too, but somehow I wasn't ready to say that yet and he probably knew anyway. Still, to give the guy credit, he only faltered for a moment before telling me that he just wanted to talk to me. I knew he was probably purposely being vague because of where we were, but there was a moment where I wanted him to actually say what he wanted to talk about. I don't know whether I was looking for confirmation that I wasn't the only one completely freaking out about the whole thing or whether I just wanted to hear it said aloud instead of just in my head. Whatever it was, I couldn't stop the flash of expectation and then disappointment.

"I guess you should come up then," I suggested, leading the way to my apartment. I could feel his eyes on my back, probably wondering whether or not it was a good idea for him to follow me. When I heard his heavier footsteps behind me, I knew he must have decided either that it was a good idea or that it was a bad idea, but he didn't care.

The walk to my apartment seemed to take us forever and I entertained the impossible thought that someone had moved it without my knowing; surely it had never taken this long to reach the apartment before? Finally, I was once again in front of a familiar door, but this time I didn't have to knock to get into the space that this shielded. Instead, I had to fit a key in a lock in order to gain access, which would have been a hell of a lot easier if my hands weren't shaking. I didn't know exactly what I was so nervous about, but I honestly felt as if I was about to have one of the most important conversations of my relatively short life. I felt just as nervous as I did when I had spoken to Jake about taking the break we both needed; just as nervous as I did when I spoke to my Mom. However, unlike both of those other times, my anxiety now wasn't laced with heartache and sadness. I was nervous, yes, but it was a good kind of nervous; like I was on the edge of something huge – monumental almost.

I was frustrated as hell about my hand shaking so much that I couldn't open the damn lock, but before I could throw the useless piece of metal onto the floor and stamp my foot like a 5-year old throwing a tantrum in the aisle of the grocery store, Edward's large, warm hand wrapped around my own to steady it. My hand could suddenly go in a straight line again so that I could put the key in the lock, but every other part of me now seemed like it was trembling. I was aware of every movement either one of us made. I could actually give the number of seconds it took him to release my hand after we heard the lock click. I could feel his hesitation at moving too close or too far away from me. It was very reminiscent of the walk to set that we shared just after the kiss and just like then, it made me feel completely unbalanced; almost drunk.

I let him walk into the apartment before me, needing to collect myself before I was in another enclosed space with Edward; just Edward...being no one but himself. I closed the door and suddenly I found myself being pressed up against the wooden structure that I had found so hard to open only moments before, Edward's lips insistently pressing against my own. And just like before, although the movements were sudden, I wasn't surprised. It was as if my body had expected this kind of contact because no sooner had his mouth made contact with mine, I was kissing him back, opening my mouth and letting my tongue touch his lightly, teasing almost. I don't know whether the groan that came from the contact was mine or Edward's – maybe it was both – but without any conscious decision on my part, my hands were all over him. They went from grabbing handfuls of his shirt to try and get him closer to me (which was impossible given that we weren't even breathing fresh air anymore, just what the other one was breathing out), to pulling on his hair, to running up on his back, underneath the shirt that I had pulled on earlier.

I'd never been the type of girl who got so carried away in a kiss that she forgot the fact that people needed oxygen to breathe, but then again I had never kissed Edward Cullen. I knew that I should have pulled away so that I could inhale something that hadn't already been expelled from someone else's lungs, but I didn't want this to end. I didn't want to stop kissing him and have to go back to a state where we would talk about logical and responsible things whilst at the same time knowing that all the other one is thinking about is how the other tasted, or how they sounded when they were out of breath and out of their mind with lust. It was so much simpler this way; when all we could think about was the feeling that this moment, these actions, this contact gave us; when _we_ were all that mattered. I could feel Edward's hands touching the skin underneath my own shirt and my mind went blank.

Or maybe that was the lack of oxygen going to my brain. I didn't know and a big part of me didn't care as long as Edward was still here, still doing what he was doing. However, it seemed that Edward did care about my well-being (and probably his too) because with a massive effort on his part, he managed to pull away. I could tell it was a massive effort because I had a rather tight hold on the boy and for my size, I knew I was freakishly strong. I could also tell because he had to have three goes before he finally managed to detach his lips from mine.

"Bella," Edward breathed mere millimetres from my face. I could still taste his breath and it made my head swim in a way that I knew for sure wasn't because of a lack of oxygen. "Oh god, Bella." He was panting and his eyes were running all over my face, down to my chest (which was heaving as if it belonged to the heroine of a Jackie Collins novel) and back again. It was as if I could literally feel the path they were taking and I had to exercise some major self control not to just jump on him.

All the self control went completely out of the window though when his eyes finally settled on mine and all I could see was a ring of the darkest jade framing Edward's overly dilated pupils. Before he could say anything else, or even take another breath, this time it was me who made the move to close the small gap between us and suddenly words no longer existed – for either of us.

* * *

A/N: Thank you to everyone who is still reading this story for being incredibly patient the past few months. An extra huge THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed.

Funny how these two have been all talk (either with each other or in their ehads), but now they can barely string two words together in the presence of the other one. What the hell changed? Hahahaha! Also...Jasper and Maria...maybe not the storyline you will all want taking centre stage right now, but for those who have been wondering when the Jasper thing was going to be revisited...it just has. Hope you enjoyed the read!


	30. Chapter 30 Change in Plans

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything publicly recognisable. Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer and real people belong to themselves.**

**Chapter 30: BPOV**

"We have to talk," I said finally thirty minutes after I had closed the door to my apartment. I was breathless, flushed, still wedged in between the wooden door and Edward, my lips swollen and just a little bit sore, but in a very good way. A very good way indeed.

I felt Edward's head moving up and down from where it was laying between my shoulder and my chest; we were having another small breather due to oxygen issues. It was a shame that in the age of technological advancements that we were living in, no one had thought to solve this. "Talk," he mumbled, the words vibrating through me instead of actually being carried by particles of air.

I leant back minutely to get away from him because I was already as far back as the solid wood would allow and I didn't have the will to push him off, but we really did need to talk. "Edward," I tried to insist, but my voice was a little too much like a moan for him to take a hint and move away from me so that we could both clear our heads and have a conversation that didn't just involved noises.

Apparently, Edward understood what my brain was trying to communicate, but what my body was completely rebelling against and he finally pulled far enough away from me so that I couldn't just reach over and grab him back. We locked eyes for a moment, knowing that the time for letting ourselves just express what we felt for once was over and now it was time to talk about it all. Now it was time to talk about what the hell any of this meant and why it was that suddenly we couldn't be within a foot of each other alone without wanting to fuse ourselves together.

I listened as Edward cleared his throat and noticed how he was now running his hands through his hair because it had been messed up by my own very insistent appendages. I was filled with the urge to grab his hand to stop him from doing it, but I was pretty sure that if I touched him right now there would be no talking being done, only a whole hell of a lot of something else that I didn't think either one of us was ready for. Well _maybe_ we were ready for certain aspects of that something else (or maybe I was just speaking for myself), but neither of us were ready for the consequences that would inevitably erupt.

"Sorry about, er..." Edward trailed off and looked up, but he wasn't looking at me. Instead he was looking at the door behind me and doing some sort of forward motion with his hands. After looking at him like he was speaking a foreign language for a couple of seconds, I suddenly realised that he was apologising for pushing me against the door, rather forcefully actually. I wanted to laugh and tell him that if he hadn't done it first, it would have probably been him pressed up rather intimately against the wooden object. However, Edward wasn't the only one having difficulty finding the right words now that our mouths were actually free to form them.

So instead of saying anything, I just nodded and bit my lip, unsure of why this was suddenly so uncomfortable. I didn't know what to do with myself; didn't know where to look or what to say. That was probably the most frustrating part – the fact that we'd both stopped doing what we'd been doing to talk and now both of us were having difficulty stringing together a more than a couple of words. Edward couldn't seem to stop alternately running his hands through his hair or over his face, looking as if he wanted to be anywhere but here at this very moment in time. I would have been a little hurt at this had I not been feeling exactly the same way. It wasn't like I didn't want to be with Edward, but I wanted to get as far away from this stiflingly awkward atmosphere as I possibly could.

"Do you want a beer?" I asked after a few more minutes of me chewing my lip to the point where the soreness was no longer such a good thing because it was self-inflicted.

"Yeah," Edward said in a rush, answering almost before I could even finish the question.

I walked past him into the kitchen, making sure that I kept enough of a distance as I walked around him so that I wouldn't accidentally brush against him. I could still feel the way his hands gripped my hip as he tried to both push me further into the door and pull me closer into him. I shook my head clear as I neared the fridge; I shouldn't be thinking about how Edward's bare skin felt on mine or about how much more forceful he was when he was Edward instead of Robert. What I should have been doing was trying to find a way to approach the forthcoming conversation without it seeming too damn forced or awkward or just absolutely horrifying.

I handed Edward the beer (again taking care not to touch him) and led him to the lounge area where we sat on opposite sides of the coffee table, quietly sipping our beers and looking around the room, as if following a very rapidly moving particle of dust. The tension between us was so much worse than it had been on the walk from my trailer to the set and so much worse than it had been even between takes. I guess this afternoon even though I could barely look at Edward without getting a flash of what his lips felt like as they moved in tandem with mine, I could force my mind to focus on something else. I was, after all, nothing if not a complete professional – we both were – and whatever may have happened between us when we'd been on our own, we still had a job to do. Now, however, the only thing we had to do was talk about the fact that we were now apparently making out even when we weren't in character.

"Rosalie would be laughing her arse off my now," Edward commented, his rather soft voice being amplified by the sheer silence around and between us. I smiled at his English pronunciation of the word 'arse' even though I was rather confused as to why that would be the first sentence that he'd completed without stuttering or stammering or running his hands through his hair since I'd bumped into him on the stairwell.

"Am I supposed to get why?" I asked after he didn't offer anything further. He still wasn't looking directly at me, but his eyes had stopped moving to fix onto a spot just beyond my left shoulder.

Edward once again exhaled quickly and deeply. "Well about two minutes ago we couldn't keep our hands off each other and now we can barely look at each other," he mumbled quickly. "She'd find that very entertaining."

Yes, she would. In truth, _I_ would have found a situation like this very entertaining also – had I not been in it myself. I could see how utterly preposterous it was for me to be embarrassed about talking about this with Edward because like he'd said, I wasn't exactly embarrassed two minutes ago when my tongue had been tickling the roof of his mouth. Nor was I embarrassed when I'd moaned into him as he nibbled softly on my top lip. Being bashful certainly wasn't at the forefront of my mind when I'd fisted his shirt in my hands and jerked him closer to me, willing him to press his weight fully into me so every part of my body could be in contact with every part of his, even if we were both clothed at the time. No, I certainly wasn't shy or self-conscious then, but the thought of having this discussion with Edward made me feel like I was having the birds and bees talk with my mother.

I put my more than half empty bottle onto the coffee table in front of me and looked at it, long and hard, pretending I was directing my words at it instead of the man sitting across from me. "I've just never been in this situation before," I told the bottle quietly. "It's never been like this for me."

"Yeah," Edward agreed quietly. I heard his set down his own bottle, but he was turning it around instead of just staring at it like I was. "Me neither."

I was 100% sure that Edward and I were _not_ talking about the same thing because of the fact that I was talking about my situation with Edward being absolutely nothing like my situation with Jacob. When I'd said 'it's never been like this for me', I wasn't talking about how the physicality of our...whatever was new. I was talking about how my relationship with Jacob was the only one I'd ever had (serious or otherwise) and how it had started off in a completely different manner. Jacob and I had done the whole shy teenage thing where we'd go on a date that was chaperoned very begrudgingly (on both mine and his part) by Sam and he'd spend the entire night trying to find a way to put his arm around me. I knew Jacob wanted to be in a relationship with me before we even got close to being in one. We'd never had to really _talk_ at the beginning of it all; it was just a given that he liked me, wanted to date me and I liked him so we dated. It was filled with the awkwardness of being fifteen and never having had a boyfriend before, but it wasn't filled with uncertainty.

This situation, on the other hand, was all about uncertainty. I didn't know what Edward wanted from me and what was more frustrating was that I didn't really know what I wanted from him. I mean I wanted him – goodness knows the past 35 minutes were enough to drive that point home – but I didn't know what that meant. After all, there was still the small technicality that I hadn't actually broken up with my aforementioned longterm boyfriend yet. Did I even want to do that? Did Edward want me to do that? Why the hell wasn't either one of us just saying some of the questions out loud? If there were so many in _my_ head, there must have been at least a fraction of the amount in his, right?

Maybe, like me, he just didn't know where the hell to start. I wanted to know what this was between us, but Edward probably had just as much of a clue as I did. I wanted to know what today meant for the two of us and our already confusing relationship, but it was unfair of me to ask him for answers that I couldn't give him back if he turned around and asked the same questions of me. The truth of the matter was that it should have been Edward who was firing rapid questions at me because he was the one with a relatively uncomplicated life – or at least on the romantic front. Edward was single and free to kiss whomever he chose to, whilst I was less...single and free, that is.

And yet it didn't stop me from attempting to devour him minutes before.

And it certainly didn't stop me from wanting to do it again.

Right now.

Oh god, I needed to learn how to rein in my own thoughts.

After the longest silence in the history of the world (I'm an actress, it's my job to be dramatic), Edward _finally_ looked up at me and met my eyes. "I like you Bella," he said swiftly and quietly, but his voice was crystal clear. "I'm aware that I probably sound like a teenage girl right now, but just so we're clear, I like you. And I don't just mean I like spending time with you or that I like working with you, which I do by the way," he added quickly, his eyes widening a little as he realised that his words could have been taken as a veiled insult. I couldn't stop the smile that tugged at my lips at his panic. Edward grinned back at me.

"It's just that I've been trying to stop myself from being attracted to you for what feels like since I've known you and now that...well, now that some, er...now that we've...just that because we, um-"

"Yeah, I've got it Edward," I interrupt him, finding it incredibly adorable that he couldn't find words to describe what we'd been doing even though he was incredibly proficient at the act itself.

Edward sagged with relief that I let him off the hook. Honestly, looking at him now, so unsure of himself and stumbling over his words, was like looking at a completely different person. He looked and sounded like the Edward that had bitten my bottom lip rather sharply before soothing it again with little flickers of his tongue, but his entire demeanour was different. It was baffling, but it was just another piece of Edward Cullen that was being revealed to me and I kind of liked it, just like I liked the rest of the pieces that I had already seen. Edward was intriguing in ways I didn't even know people could be intriguing because even though he didn't make a conscious effort to hide himself from people, there was still so much beneath the surface that could be easily overlooked. The man fascinated me.

"Look Bella," Edward said a few moments after expressing his gratitude at the reprieve I'd given. "The thing is, I get that you're dealing with a lot of things right now and I get that we're doing a movie together and I get that you're still in some sort of relationship with your maybe ex. I understand all of the reasons why what I'm about to say is a really bad idea, but I just need to say it."

I looked met his gaze and tried to remain completely calm and receptive for whatever he had to get out – even if I was panicking a little bit about him suddenly telling me that he'd made a huge mistake and what happened between us should never have happened. I knew that he wouldn't have prefaced a declaration like that by telling me he 'liked' me, but I was, after all, still a 19 year-old girl and irrationality was a familiar part of my life.

"I want to see whether we'd be as fantastic together as something more as we are when we're just friends," Edward finally admitted. "I don't want to be a complication in your life Bella, but I do want to be something more than the co-star and the friend."

"You are Edward," I insisted without even being aware that my lips were forming those words until I heard them out there. I think both Edward and I were rather shocked by that admission. I wasn't surprised by the sentiment because I'd known for some time that my relationship with Edward was absolutely nothing like my relationship with my other friends – male or female – but I was surprised that it had come out of my mouth so readily.

I didn't know whether it was necessarily the best thing to say or the best time to say it, but when I saw the hope and happiness expressed on Edward's face, I didn't care anymore. He deserved to know that it wasn't just him in whatever this thing between us was. I may not have been able to give him – or myself – any solid answers about some of the most important questions between us, but I could give him _something_.

I stood up from my chair and walked around so that I was standing in front of him, blocking the coffee table and our beers from view. In a reversal of our norm, it was me who had to lean down to be face to face with Edward this time. I raised my hand to feel the stubble on his jaw that was required for the film and looked at him squarely in the eyes, revelling in the fact that they were a dark forest green instead of the sapphire blue that had been staring back at me all day. "You are something _so much_ more Edward."

*

Tuesday morning at work was a nightmare of epic proportions for everyone who had the misfortune of being there. I was in before Edward this morning because I had some early scenes to shoot with Ben – or at least that's what I thought was going to be happening. Instead the happy, excited mood that I'd been in since mine and Edward's understanding of sorts the night previously vanished completely when I walked into Sue's office and found James Wilde sitting there with a very pleased smile on his face.

"Bella, you're here!" Sue exclaimed when I walked into the room.

"Well you sent for me," I replied, feeling tense because I could feel James' eyes raking all over my body before coming to a stop at my breasts. Maybe I would have understood why his eyes would have been drawn there if I hadn't been wearing a god damn hooded sweatshirt that was three sizes too big for me and hid every bump and curve. I rolled my eyes at him when he finally looked back up at my face, but all he did in reply was wink at me. The man was a walking fucking cliché and he wasn't even ashamed of it.

Sue gestured for me to sit down, but I shook my head because it would bring me in far too close proximity with James Wilde. Even before I met him and experienced what he was like first hand, I knew that James was not the sort of guy that I could get on with. He reminded me far too much of Kyle and the group of people he had surrounding him – too immersed in the lifestyle and the hype to care much about the work and the really important people in your life.

"Ben had some bad news last night Bella," Sue explained when it was clear that I wasn't going to sit down.

"Oh my god, is he okay? What happened?"

Sue was the one who shook her head this time. "It's not really my place to give you any details, but what I can say is that Ben's gone back home and doesn't know how long he'll be there so we've had to replace him."

It took me a while to connect the dots of Ben being replaced and James' presence because I was genuinely worried about Ben, who was one of the few people on set that I trusted and would willingly spend time with when we weren't shooting. I hoped he was okay, though by the sounds of it something damn serious had happened – three months was a long time to be gone and the studio would not have let him out of the contract without good reason. However, once Sue's words infiltrated my anxiety for the well-being of my ex-cast mate, I understood why James was sitting there looking like the cat that got the fucking canary.

"You've got to be kidding me?" I couldn't help the words as they rushed from my mouth. Going from Ben to James was like going from Mercury to Pluto – literally worlds apart.

James laughed whilst Sue raised an eyebrow in surprise, no doubt at the venom in my voice after we'd just been talking about Ben's problems – whatever they may have been. She obviously thought that I was still talking about Ben.

"Is this impromptu meeting with James so that you can introduce me to Ben's replacement?" I asked as an explanation.

I didn't need Sue's verbal confirmation to know that I was right because I could see James' arrogant smirk getting bigger from the corner of my eye. I couldn't believe that Sue anyone would think that James was a good replacement for Ben. This had to be because someone at the studio wanted the attention that James' name would bring to the film; they wanted the inches in the printed media because it would generate even more anticipation and excitement for the film. I didn't think that James' presence on set would be a positive one, but there was nothing I could do about it without sounding like a bitch trying to throw my weight around the set. Not that I had that much weight anyway, not against a bunch of suits most likely blinded by the dollar signs in front of their eyes.

"James is going to need some time to prepare so we'll have to postpone the scenes that you were supposed to be shooting with Ben until next week and push some of _those_ scenes forward," Sue carried on explaining. "I'll tell everyone else about it when they arrive for the emergency meeting. I just thought you two should formally meet since you're going to have the most scenes together and you're going to need some time to get to know each other."

"I don't think James and I really need to spend too much time together," I disagreed. "We're both professionals and I'm sure we'll be able to create the right kind of relationship when the time comes to film our scenes. I mean I'm sure he'd like to meet the rest of the cast as soon as possible."

Sue gave me a strange look and I knew she was questioning my rather strange and aloof behaviour towards the newest member of our cast, but she wouldn't call me out on it with James here and I was pretty sure he would be here longer than she needed me to be there, so I stood my ground, kept my face neutral and just looked right back at her. She finally looked back over at James and started talking to the both of us again about how the rest of the day was going to be proceeding in light of the sudden, forced change in plans. I was only there for another 10 minutes before Sue let me get back to prepare for a scene that I had with Jessica and Jane, which shouldn't have been being filmed until this afternoon. I wondered when everyone was supposed to be getting in for the big cast change reveal. There was no doubt some very pissed off actors who'd had their beauty sleep interrupted by the shrill ringing of a phone this morning. The set was surely going to be a magical place to be around today.

Edward would be one of the people that they'd dragged out of bed far earlier than he had anticipated being needed. It didn't escape my notice that the thought of Edward made me smile. I could feel my lips spreading involuntarily and I rolled my eyes at how ridiculous I was being; he was still just Edward. But even that thought made me smile wider because as I was beginning to realise 'just Edward' was the best kind. A small corner section of my brain was telling me that I shouldn't be feeling this good over something that was going to bring so many complications for the both of us, but it was drowned out by the overwhelmingly larger part of my brain that was telling me to just let myself be happy in whatever was going on. After all, I was only 19 and my life shouldn't be full of complications and hard decisions. Jake and I weren't married and Edward and I weren't even really dating. We were just...we were exploring and basking in the fact that it was okay for us to be completely honest with each other and ourselves. Well, at least when we were by ourselves anyway.

Although our 'talk' the night before had been interrupted by more bouts of our lips being otherwise occupied, Edward and I did reach some sort of agreement as to how to proceed with what was happening between us; what had _been_ happening between us for far longer than either one of us cared to admit actually. We'd agreed to be open to the idea of pursuing a relationship with the other one without forcing anything to happen. There was still a lot to talk about, still a lot of people, feelings and situations to occur, but we weren't rushing into anything and we wanted to just keep everyone else out of it until we could figure everything out together. Still as much as we didn't want anything else to intrude on something we couldn't yet define, there was _someone_ else besides me and Edward that I had to consider in all of this – Jacob.

I needed to talk to Jacob, but before I could do that I had to figure out what I wanted to say to him. I knew now that we couldn't carry on in this relationship limbo that we had put ourselves in – it wasn't fair to either of us. I couldn't deny the attraction I had for Edward and I couldn't ignore the fact that I didn't want to wonder what it would be like to pursue it, I actually wanted to experience it. However, I also knew that I didn't want to be the girl who held onto her ex because she was scared of not being in a relationship. Not that this was the reason that I hadn't yet completely ended my relationship with Jacob, not entirely anyway. I mean I guess a part of me was scared of being without the comfort and safety that my relationship with Jake provided. After all, he'd been with me through my late teenage years, which was a tough time for anyone, let alone someone who had stopped speaking to her mother and was trying to prove herself to be a serious player in a world dominated by adults. I owed Jacob a lot, but that wasn't a reason to hold on to a romantic relationship that no longer seemed to be right for me, for _us_.

Looking back at the last few months of my relationship with Jacob as objectively as I could (which, admittedly was not really that objectively at all), I failed to see how he could have been really happy in it. We weren't really having problems, not outwardly anyway, it was just that we were absolutely no longer on the same page so to speak. The moving house incident was just one example of how far out of synch we had been getting; Jacob was ready to move forward, _wanted_ to move forward and I was still standing stock still trying to figure out my place in the blurring reality around me.

It wasn't until I met Edward that everything stopped becoming just a whirring mass of colour and noise. I finally got that it was okay to be confused and to re-think where you were going. I understood that it was okay to be unsure and there was no one else that was demanding for me to have all the answers to life except myself. Talking to Edward about everything from the most mundane things to some of the most important moments in both our lives allowed me to put things into perspective. Edward made me feel as if it was _normal_ to look at your life and ask _why_ you were doing the things you were doing and what it was you were getting from it all.

I knew it wasn't fair to compare my years long relationship with Jacob to the new developments between Edward and I, but I had very limited experience with guys and relationships, so when I tried to contextualise my feelings for Edward using past knowledge, there was only my relationship with Jacob that I could draw from. Jacob understood who I was when I was 15, but I didn't feel as if he still did. It wasn't his fault. If anything, it was completely mine because sometimes I looked in the mirror and didn't really know if I knew myself anymore. Yet it felt like when I was with Edward, he saw me, he knew me, he _understood me_. My mind had been rebelling at these thoughts for weeks, months even because I couldn't really comprehend them or explain them to myself. I knew if I gave voice to them, whoever heard them would scoff at the teenage romantic drama tone they had, but I couldn't express the things that Edward made me feel in any other way.

I wasn't ending my relationship with Jacob for Edward (something that I had made clear to Edward last night). I wasn't going to make the undoubtedly huge mistake of jumping from one relationship to the other. Quite apart from anything else, both Jake and Edward deserved far more respect than that. I was ending my relationship with Jacob because I didn't think it was working for either of us anymore. He needed someone who could move forward with him, who could visualise the same future he could and that person was no longer me. I couldn't offer Jacob the same kind of support and comfort that he deserved from his significant other; all I could offer him was confusion and disappointment. It was just a shame that I would be hurting him in an effort to prevent both of us from wasting our time on a relationship that had run its course.

It made me unbearably sad to think that my once thriving relationship with Jacob had come to such an end. A couple of years ago when Jacob gave me a bracelet with the infinity symbol dangling from it as a promise for the future, I honestly thought I would be spending my life with Jacob Black. Up until probably 6 months ago, I envisioned Jake and myself trying to balance our careers with the family that we would most probably have. It wasn't without a trace of regret that I acknowledged the unlikelihood of that happening now. I was a different person and when I looked towards the future, I could barely see what I where _I_ wanted to be, never mind picture who was with me there.

There was a knock on my trailer door that jostled me out of my slightly melancholy thoughts and Alice's face appeared from behind the door when I called for the person knocking to come in. Alice gave me a small smile in greeting when she stepped into the relatively small space that was my home away from the apartment. The smile was forced and her eyes were tight with the effort of it. I looked at her apprehensively, sensing that something was very wrong with her, but not wanting to bring it up without her first drawing attention to it. I thought that she was probably here to talk about it, but it wasn't exactly my place to drag it out of her.

"Do you know why Sue called everyone in this morning?" Alice asked when she'd taken a seat at the small table across from me. "Someone called me about forty minutes ago and apparently they gave Edward just as much notice." She must have noticed the utter shock on my face at her mentioning Edward because she carried right on with an explanation. "We shared a car on the way in this morning and he looked rather like he just rolled out of bed."

I ignored the visual that my mind conjured up as Alice said this; I didn't need to have those thoughts about Edward displayed unknowingly on my face as _Alice_, of all people, sat there to witness it. I forced my mind to focus on what Alice was asking me. "Um, yeah actually I do. Sue's announcing a sudden change in casting this morning."

The surprise on Alice's face must have been the same as mine when she'd mentioned Edward. "Who? Why?"

I shook my head. "I don't think I'm supposed to give you details, but you'll know soon enough anyway. Sue will probably call the meeting when everyone's here."

Alice nodded and silence fell around us again, but she didn't leave and obviously she wasn't just here to talk about why she had been called hours earlier than she was originally scheduled to be in. Finally after about 10 more minutes of silence interspersed with attempts at small-talk that encompassed everything from traffic to the weather (yeah, exciting, I know), Alice came out with what she had actually come to talk to me about. Unsurprisingly it was about Jasper and I understood some of the tension that she was carrying around.

"I asked Jasper if he was hiding something from me," Alice told me after a period of expectant silence. "I came back to the apartment after our talk last night and just outright asked him. I couldn't help myself. He was sitting there and the words just came out of my mouth before I could stop them."

I nodded, encouraging her to go on, though I doubted she would stop now.

"I fed him some bullshit about just getting a 'funny feeling' that he was keeping something from me and he just chuckled and assured me that nothing was going on for me to worry about."

Alice looked anguished as she spoke and I understood why; Jasper hadn't actually denied hiding something from her and she would definitely have picked up on that. He had offered her words of comfort whilst completely not answering her question and given the state that Alice was in, it wasn't enough for her. If anything, it probably added to her suspicions that he couldn't give her a straight answer. For me, I kind of felt a little relieved that Jasper hadn't just outright lied to her when she asked him a direct question, though I could never explain to Alice why she should be comforted by his answer without revealing that I knew more about the situation than I had let on.

"He spent the rest of the night making light-hearted conversation and avoiding anything serious," Alice continued. "Bella I really think Jasper is hiding something huge from me and I'm going insane wondering whether he has a family tucked away in some part of the country somewhere."

I had to interrupt her to defend Jasper, which I didn't think I would have been doing given that I knew he was hiding something huge from everyone. "Alice no," I told her. "I know that you're mind is going to conjure the worst possible scenario, but don't go there. You have to believe that you were drawn to Jasper because you saw something good in him. I don't think he's a type of guy to lead a double life like that."

Alice looked at me intently for a few moments, probably trying to decide whether I actually believed what I was saying instead of just trying to offer her words of comfort when I could see that she was very distressed over the whole Jasper situation. "I've just never been in this situation before Bella," she confessed to me. "I've never fallen so fast and so deep for a guy like I have with Jasper. I feel like he could really be it for me, you know? And I know it sounds really corny and cheesy and cliché – so much so that I actually wouldn't be surprised if you excused yourself to vomit right now." We both grinned at that comment. It was nice to see that she could still make jokes. "I'm just worried that I've gotten so used to pushing myself away from people that I've come full circle and I'm pushing myself towards someone that isn't even really all that available."

I shook my head and told her the only thing I felt I knew to be true about Jasper Whitlock. "Alice the guy is about as into you as you are into him. He's crazy about you. I don't know too much about him, but I have at least seen that much." My mind flashed back to the sincerity and desperation in his eyes as he pleaded for me to keep the secret that he'd been in New York for a lot longer than he'd let her know. I didn't know exactly what Jasper was hiding, what he was up to or what this woman, Maria, had to do about it, but I trusted that he really did care about Alice.

As Alice breathed deeply and tried to recollect herself, I hoped to god that I didn't prove to be a bad judge of character.

*

The meeting was, in a word, _uncomfortable_. In two words _really uncomfortable_. Sue had made the announcement of Ben's sudden departure before bringing James into the room like a show pony and James was only too happy to stride in and have his chance to perform in front of a room full of people. I wondered briefly what he'd been like before the spotlight had hit him square in the face, blinding him of everything else but the need to stay within it. Had he always been so keen for the attention and the praise? Is that why he had wanted to go into the business in the first place? Or had he actually loved the art and the craft itself? I had met a few people in the industry who had started off loving the work and ended up placing more importance on the fame and adulation of strangers. It was a sad thing to see and I only hoped that I would not end up like that in the years to come.

Eyes had flicked over to Angela in all the time that Sue was explaining Ben's present and future absence from the set and I felt for her. On the one hand she must have been utterly embarrassed by the blatant curiosity directed at her from her not so subtle cast mates. On the other hand, she was probably worried about Ben and whatever was serious enough for him to have been called away so urgently and in such an abrupt manner. James' addition to the cast seemed to excite some people and puzzle others because he didn't seem like the kind of guy who would take a role in a film where he would most definitely _not_ be the star. The role of Charles Winters, whilst being an important one, was not a big one. He had possibly three big scenes in the entire film and made appearances in two others so for him to be accepting this role after auditioning for – and failing to land – the lead role was a curious move. Perhaps all the bad press he'd been getting lately had negatively affected his career prospects. Or maybe his 'people' were trying to get him to do more serious, varied roles where he wasn't always playing the cliché bad guy.

Sue ended the meeting with the hope that everyone would work together in this time of upheaval to make sure that everything went as smoothly as it possibly could. She seemed quite happy with James' addition to the cast, though I really didn't understand why. Sue could usually see through anyone's bullshit and she wasn't easily won over, which made her a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. Yet there she was, chatting to James and looking as if she was hanging on his every word. It was disturbing and I hoped that she was only acting that way to make him comfortable.

"You don't seem overly happy with the new casting choice," Edward observed.

He had been sitting a few seats down from me in the meeting and there were a few times when he'd caught me rolling my eyes as James spoke to the room. He had raised an eyebrow in question at my behaviour, but I obviously couldn't give him an answer when we were still in the meeting room. It wouldn't be very professional of me to interrupt James to tell Edward the reasons I found him a little hard to stomach in front of people we were supposed to be working with for the next two months.

"That's a very polite way to say it," I told him. "I'm actually flabbergasted that they would cast James Wilde at all on this film, never mind as a replacement for Ben. The two of them couldn't be further apart."

"I take it there's no love lost between the two of you? You're kind of giving off a huge wave of hostility right now and I refuse to believe it's directed at me because last night you certainly didn't seem hostile."

I heard the smirk in his voice before I could turn around and see it for myself. Edward's eyes were crinkled in amusement, but his irises were dark with the memories of just how _friendly_ I had been during our 'talk' the previous night. Hostility, then, was definitely the last thing on my mind. I felt my own lips twist as I tried to hide a mirroring smile at his words. Edward shy and unsure was adorable and endearing; Edward confident and teasing was exciting and desirable.

Definitely desirable.

I felt myself take a few steps towards him almost involuntarily, my fingers itching to compare what his smirk felt like versus what it looked like. However, the voices of the other members of the cast and crew carrying in the space around us reminded me that we were not alone and it would certainly raise a few eyebrows (as well as questions) if I just started to man-handle Edward, my friend and co-star.

So, instead of touching him inappropriately, I answered Edward's question about my dislike of James. I kind of had a feeling that Edward would understand where I was coming from, though I certainly didn't want him to form an idea of who James was just based on what I told him. Edward expressed genuine surprise when I told him that James had initially auditioned for the part of Rob and had been refused it. It still seemed as if Edward didn't think he was the best person for the job even though I had told him time and time again that I didn't think anyone could do a better job. I wasn't just saying it either. I genuinely thought that Edward was made to play this part and it wasn't just because I found it very easy to be enamoured with him on screen. I honestly believed that Edward, as a person, embodied all the qualities of the character that made him interesting, relatable, unforgettable and unique. Edward had the soul of an artist like Rob and it would have been a waster for James to play that part. Well, in my opinion anyway.

When I told Edward about how James had tried to slip me tongue in his audition, he made some comment about being glad he kept his in check. I laughed along with him, but briefly wondered whether or not I would have felt the same revulsion if it had been Edward. I decided that no, I probably wouldn't have been physically repulsed by the act, but I would have definitely been uncomfortable with it and would have let him know in no uncertain terms that I was. It was completely inappropriate for James to have done it when he had only just met me and the script didn't call for anything like that. It would have been completely inappropriate for Edward to do the same thing and I would have thought very differently of him had he done it, even if I did find him far more attractive than James Wilde.

We had reached his trailer in the time it had taken for me to explain why I disliked James to such a degree that it was actually palpable. It was the first time that I'd been in Edward's trailer but it's resemblance to my own made me feel as if I'd been there several times, so I didn't exactly wait for an invitation to take a seat in the same spot as I would have done were we in my trailer. Edward looked at me and raised his eyebrows, but I just shrugged and carried on pretending like I didn't notice the fact that we were now alone in a private location for the first time since he left my apartment last night. I perused the generically beige walls of the space, feigning indifference to the fact that the trail Edward's eyes were making up my legs, body, arms across my face and to my lips were leaving goose bumps in their wake. It felt as if he were passing the tip of a feather lightly all over me and the way it made me want to squirm in the most wonderful of ways was tantalising.

The shift in the atmosphere between me and Edward every time we were alone in a room together now was so ridiculously obvious, it almost became a tangible thing. It was as if the air was being permeated with attraction, lust, wonderment and tension and every inhale I took just drew all of that into me, mixing the feelings coming from him with my own. It was maddening, really it was. A very significant part of me wanted to explore my very physical reaction to Edward in a very physical manner, but I just couldn't be the girl that slept with her co-star when she was still in a relationship. I didn't want to be that girl no matter how much I wanted, in this very second, to pull Edward to me and plead with him to just ease the ache that I know for certain wasn't just being felt on my end.

I bit my lip at the thought, trying not to picture that very moment in detail worthy of being projected on a high-definition screen.

I heard Edward groan from my right and saw him run both of his hands over his face. He was looking frustrated as hell and I found it both comforting and amusing that I wasn't being the only one tortured with the heavy tension. "Why is it that ever since yesterday, I can't be in the same room alone with you without wanting to..."

He trailed off, leaving me to fill in the gaps using my very active (and rather sexually charged) imagination. The fire in his eyes as he said the words had me believing that his thoughts weren't too far from my own. It didn't exactly help diffuse the tension any.

I knew exactly what he meant though. Ever since I had known what it was like to kiss Edward (and in return be kissed by Edward) – and I mean really _kiss Edward_ – I seemed to be in the mind that any time we were alone and _not_ touching in some way was a complete waste of time and opportunity. I guess that because I had, for so long, stopped myself from seeing Edward as anything other than a friend and co-worker (albeit an _attractive_ and _desirable_ friend and co-worker), now that I had broken through that dam, everything had come spilling out. I didn't want to stop myself from acting on every single impulse to play with his fingers when his hand was near mine. I didn't want to control the urge to kiss him when he was busy being all self-deprecating and stumbling over his words. Now that Edward and I had given ourselves – and each other, no doubt – permission to just give in and see where all this was leading, it was kind of hard to stop.

"It's a little bit insane right?" I agreed, laughing to try and lighten the situation so that I wouldn't tell him to just _do it_. I didn't want to make it any harder for either of us to take this development in our relationship slowly, baby step after baby step.

Edward nodded in agreement and chuckled. "Maybe we shouldn't be in confined spaces alone with each other for a while," he suggested. "Just until we can control our more...er...our baser urges."

I could do nothing to prevent the almost hysterical giggle coming out of my mouth as Edward's lips wrapped around the words 'baser urges'. I was laughing to keep myself from groaning at the flashes of naked skin that presented themselves to me upon hearing those two words in Edward's voice. I needed to get a grip. I couldn't be this sexually charged around him and still be keeping a distance due to the situation we had found ourselves in. I needed to find the balance between how we were before and where we thought we may be going in the future. By the look on Edward's face, we _both_ needed to find this balance.

*

**EPOV**

I couldn't remember the last night I'd had a full 8 hours sleep. Hell, I couldn't remember the last time I'd had _6_ hours of sleep, never mind the full 8. I thought that I had time to finally get a decent night's sleep because I didn't need to be onset until lunch time today, but that thought was slashed when a pillow landed on my face accompanied by Rosalie's voice calling my name. It took me several seconds to realise that Rosalie was calling my name for a reason and that she was currently explaining that very reason to me.

"Edward seriously get the hell up unless you want me to pour water all over you," she threatened.

It took monumental effort to open my eyes and I wondered vaguely whether or not Rosalie had glued my eyelids together as a practical joke. When I did finally see her standing over me though, she was holding a phone out to me still in her pyjamas, looking pissed off and very inconvenienced. I guess the phone had woken her up. I didn't say anything as I accepted the phone, mostly because my brain was working far too slowly for me to formulate the words that Rosalie would want to hear.

"Hello?" I mumbled, knowing I sounded like I'd been yanked from the depths of sleep (probably because I had and my dream had been a damn good one too).

"Edward, it's Emily," the voice on the other end of the line announced. I tried to place the name, but I honestly couldn't remember if I knew an Emily, so I just stayed silent and waited for her to explain who she was and why she was calling me.

"You're going to be needed on set by 8 this morning instead of 11," Emily continued in a clipped, rushed manner. "The car will be at your apartment complex in about 15 minutes so I suggest you hurry up and get ready. Bye Edward."

The dial tone was already sounding before I finally realised that Emily was Sue's assistant and I had been given the early morning call because for some reason, something had changed and I was being called into work 4 hours early. Shit. I was out of bed and in the shower faster than I could properly form those very thoughts in my head. I didn't even have time to wonder about what could have changed because really, it could have been anything from the weather to availability of a particular location. I had time to quickly apologise to Rosalie before I flew out of the apartment, down the stairs and to the front of the complex where Alice Brandon was just opening the door to the car obviously sent by the studio.

Shit.

Alice and I had avoided being alone with each other at all costs, knowing that one of us (and by that I mean _me_ because I wouldn't hit a woman) wouldn't survive the confrontation without physical wounds. I briefly wondered whether they would send a second car for me, but when the driver saw me and smiled, I knew that I was expected to climb into the same non-descript black car as Alice. Today was not exactly getting off to the best of starts. Which was a shame because last night had definitely ended on a high note.

A very high note.

*

_Bella was in front of me reassuring me that I wasn't just an added complication in her life. I felt her fingers run back and forth along my jaw to emphasise the sentiment of her words, as if she felt that if her words wouldn't convince me that she meant it, her touch would. She wasn't exactly wrong either, but even without the feel of her fingers on my skin, the look in her eyes and the emotion behind her words would definitely have convinced me. It felt absolutely amazing for Bella to tell me that my telling her that I wanted to be with her, that I wanted to see if whatever was going on between us went further than friendship and physical attraction wasn't just an unwelcome inconvenience in her life. _

_I had been on edge earlier as I stood on the other side of her door waiting for Bella to answer it. After five minutes had gone by and she still hadn't opened the door, I was beginning to worry that she just didn't want to speak to me; that she was ignoring the knocking because she no longer trusted me to be alone with her without trying to assault her. As soon as the words crossed my mind, I knew they were ridiculous, but it didn't help fight the despair I felt as I made my way back to my own apartment. I was so caught up in self-pity that I didn't see Bella turning the corner until I had knocked her down. Brilliant. Very smooth of me._

_It was rather ironic that I'd been going to her apartment to speak to her about earlier on today but when I was in front of her, with an opportunity to say _something_ about what had happened, all I could do was stutter out incomplete sentences. I sounded like I hadn't yet learned how to construct sentences with the words that I knew and I was about to just give it up for a loss and try again tomorrow when Bella actually suggested that we talk in her apartment. I didn't know what the hell I was going to say to her and I didn't know what I wanted to hear from her in return. I didn't want to apologise for what I did that morning because I wasn't really sorry at all and I would do it again. However, I didn't want her to think that I thought I had the right to do it again, or that I thought I had the right to have done it in the first place. _

_I spent the entire walk back to her apartment trying very hard to keep my hands to myself and my mind off the fact that I could reach out, grab Bella and be in exactly the same sort of situation as we had found ourselves in this morning. As I followed her, I couldn't keep my eyes from wandering over the curves of her form that her clothes showcased, remembering what it was like to have those curves pressed against me, to have my hands run over them. I had to swallow and avert my eyes quite a few times as I walked behind Bella. I should have been taking the time to come up with something great to say to her that would encompass everything I had felt towards her for months now. I wanted to let her in on the confusion and the yet the clarity that she gave me. I wanted to share the very complex knots my mind had made of the situation we found ourselves in with the hope that maybe, even if she couldn't help me untie them, she could at least share in my bewilderment over them. Instead, I was having not so innocent thoughts about her, so much so that when she closed the door of her apartment, I couldn't stop myself from pressing her up against the wall and preventing both of us from the actual act of talking._

_Instead of Bella slapping me and telling me to get the hell out of her apartment and her life, she was right here telling me things that I didn't know I needed to hear so badly. Or well, maybe I did know how badly I needed to hear them, but I had refused to acknowledge the fact that I knew. See...knots. I brought my hand up to hers, which was still stroking the growth of hair on my jaw, mimicking the pattern that she was drawing on my skin._

"_This is just..." Bella started, stopped and then took a deep breath. "I never expected _you_ Edward," she told me. "I didn't think that I'd do this job and meet someone like you who...who just...who sees me as the person I want to be already when I didn't even know I wanted to be that person." Bella stopped and shook her head. "I'm not even making any sense."_

_She started to move her hand away, probably because she was flustered and wanted to move away, but I didn't want her to move away. I understood exactly what she was trying to say because I felt the same way when I was around her. I felt as if the person that Bella saw in me was the person that I had always worked at being and yet never even knew I was trying to be. It was a strange sensation and it wasn't as if she had built an image of me herself and was asking me to _be_ that person. It wasn't like that at all. It was just that sometimes it felt as if Bella knew me in a way that I didn't even think people could know me. It was so hard to explain, but it was a relief to know that I wasn't the only one feeling confused by whatever this was._

_I forced Bella to look back at me by tugging on the hand that I still hadn't let go. "I understand Bella," I told her. "I honestly get it."_

_Bella's body relaxed in relief and she smiled as she sat down on the coffee table in front of me, making sure to move my empty beer bottle back so that she didn't knock it over or sit on it. "I don't know what it is about you Edward," Bella confessed after looking down at our joined hands for a while. "I don't know what it is about us." She looked up at me, her eyes full of wonder with a hint of confusion and anxiety, but not a trace of doubt. "I just...I think we owe it to ourselves to find out if...to see whether or not..."_

_She didn't need to finish her sentence for me to understand what she was trying to say and I could feel my face split into a grin that I was sure could have rivalled the Cheshire Cat's. Bella was in front of me telling me that she thought there was something between us worth exploring. She didn't hate me for kissing her this morning and she certainly didn't hate me for kissing her just a few minutes ago. I was not alone in whatever it was that I was feeling for her. After the afternoon and evening of dread and doubt that I had experienced, she couldn't have been saying any better words right now. _

_Before I could second guess myself and before Bella could truly explain what she meant by wanting to see where this strangely brilliant dynamic would take us, I pulled her towards me and once again our 'talk' was delayed by much more pleasant activities._

*

I left Bella's apartment very reluctantly at midnight, knowing that she had an early call in the morning. However, I had been so wired that I had gone down to the gym in the building to work out the excess energy that I couldn't yet work out with Bella. We hadn't really agreed that we would date because that seemed a little contrived and forced. Besides, Bella still had a boyfriend to break up with before she could be considered available to date and even when she and Jacob finally, officially ended their romantic relationship, I didn't want to be the rebound guy. Instead, we had agreed to just let things progress with us as they naturally would. We wouldn't put pressure on ourselves by coming up with a label and so as far as anyone else was concerned, nothing had changed in our relationship.

However, privately, so much had changed. It seemed that in an effort to keep myself from wanting to be with Bella, I had blocked out a lot of stuff and prevented myself from noticing just how enticing the woman was. Once I had broken through that wall (which had been getting a little less stable the past couple of weeks anyway), there was no stopping the barrage of things I found about Bella to be attracted to or turned on by or just thought was plain adorable. I left her apartment very frustrated, knowing that our physical relationship would not be progressing much past the teenage making out stage until she was completely single and free at the very least. Really, it shouldn't have even progressed that far, but apparently I had no self-control and no morals these days.

I knew that I should have been feeling guilty about the fact that I was kissing a girl who _technically_ still had a boyfriend (a fact that Carmen would have gone ape shit over). I knew that I should have been feeling guilty about telling Bella that I wanted to explore a relationship beyond friendship with her whilst she still had ties to Jacob, but I didn't. I actually couldn't find it in me to feel guilty. Well, not guilty in the sense that I owed it to Jacob to _not_ go after his sort-of-girlfriend anyway. I should have. I absolutely should have because contrary to what the readers of _'Famous'_ now believed, I was not the sort of guy to even want to break up a relationship. There were selfish reasons for this as well as moral ones, namely that I didn't want to come second in a relationship. I'd had enough of feeling second best because of my father and I didn't exactly seek out that same feeling from my romantic relationships.

I guess I felt a little bit of guilt for putting Bella in a situation where she would have to say goodbye to someone I didn't know if she was ready to say goodbye to yet. I kind of felt like I was forcing her hand, so to speak, but then I caught myself thinking that very thing and almost laughed out loud at my conceit. I doubted very much that Bella's decision to really end things with Jacob centred on me and my thinking it did made me sound like a self-important asshole. Bella had her own mind, could make her own decisions and she wasn't the type of girl – woman – to be so easily influenced. Hell, out of the two of us, I would have to say that I was more easily influenced by her than she by me. Part of me hoped that our evolving relationship _did_ have some impact on her decision – that was probably my male ego at work – and I guess that was probably where my small bit of guilt about the entire situation stemmed from.

When I went back to my apartment last night, I had thought that today was going to be a rather great day. I had a late start, was going to be spending the entire day with Bella (even if it was at work) and then tonight, Bella and I were going out to talk some more. It wasn't a date – she'd been quite clear on that. Rather, we both decided that there were other things that we needed to talk about and that we couldn't do that if we weren't in a room full of people. I was going to spend some time in the morning looking at places where we could talk privately and yet still be with enough people to prevent us from using the time to do what we'd spent a majority of last night doing. However, as I climbed into the back of the black car and saw the surprise on Alice's face, I had to re-think my stance on today being such a good day. The last time I unexpectedly saw Alice first thing in the morning, she had left my cheek stinging and marked for days.

"Edward," Alice acknowledged as the car started to pull out onto the main road.

"Alice," I said back. Obviously we would be winning prizes for great conversations any day now.

Alice nodded and then averted her eyes so that she could look at the window and avoid having to grasp for words to string together into something that passed for a conversation in normal society. I followed her lead, preferring to watch the crowds walking around the streets that we were blurring by. Well, blurring may have been a bit of an overstatement seeing as currently the traffic wasn't allowing us to build up enough speed for such visuals. I was wondering what Alice would say when she found out that Jacob and Bella had broken up completely instead of just being on a break. I knew that she was a good friend of Bella's nearly ex-boyfriend, but lately she'd been a pretty good friend of Bella's too. Would that change? Would the break-up cause her to choose sides? As much as I didn't particularly like Alice, I understood that she was at least a very loyal friend and even with her tendency to jump to conclusions because of that loyalty, I couldn't fault that quality in anyone.

It seemed as if Alice was a fiercely loyal friend to Jacob, much like Rosalie was to me, I guess. Jasper had explained to me that Jacob and Alice had some strange and interconnected history that she hadn't really expanded on. I wondered briefly whether they'd ever had a relationship, but even if they had it couldn't have been anything too serious seeing as they would only have been in their early teens. After all, Jacob and Bella had been together for nearly four years. It was a stab in the dark really because their complex history with each other could have been anything; after all my own history with Rosalie didn't involve any kind of romantic relationship on our part. I just hoped that whatever their history was, it wasn't filled with nearly as much heartache and angst as mine was with my best friend.

We had finally moved past the crippling traffic of central Manhattan and the view of the streets around us was finally beginning to be nothing but colourful blurs when Alice's voice called my name. I turned around to face her, making sure that I hadn't been hearing things. She was looking in my direction, but she wasn't looking directly at me. Instead Alice now seemed to be looking out of my window and taking deep breaths, as if she was steeling herself to say something rather major. I had a feeling this wasn't going to be good.

"You've known Jasper for a long time right?" she asked in a voice that was completely unlike her.

I had been right.

This wasn't going to be good. She wanted to talk about Jasper? Even if Alice and I had been on more cordial terms with each other, what on earth would make her think that I would be open to talking about one of my closest friends with his girlfriend? There were certain things that you didn't do to your friends and one of those things involved talking about them to their significant others when they didn't know about it and you weren't already friends with that significant other. Alice and I didn't really know each other so any conversation that we were going to have about Jasper would probably be her asking personal questions about him that I would not be at liberty to answer. I was pretty sure that my refusal to answer any such questions would only make our already strained relationship more so.

Like I said, it wasn't going to be good.

However, I had to actually acknowledge that I had heard her question and shrugged in response. "I don't know if you consider 8 months a long time, but I've known him for a while, yeah."

"8 months?" she asked, seemingly surprised by this. Had Jasper told her something different? Could I not even answer a simple question? I really needed to get the hell out of this conversation. "I got the impression that you'd known each other a lot longer."

I didn't say anything, already feeling like I had revealed too much information, though I had no idea what Alice was actually looking for nor what Jasper had told her. I didn't like the feeling of being questioned about my friend, but I acknowledged that it was probably Jasper that had brought this situation upon both Alice and I. She would not just randomly start asking me about her boyfriend unless he had given her reason to and apparently Jasper was giving a lot of people reasons to ask questions about him of late.

"Do you...I mean what's he...did he tell you anything about what he did before you knew him?" Alice asked, her eyes flicking from the window beyond my shoulder to the floor of the car. Although her hesitation at asking these questions was evident in the way that she was stumbling over her words, she seemed to be forcing herself to ask me anyway, which led me to believe that whatever it was she wanted was pretty important – to her at least.

"Alice why don't you just ask me whatever it is that you obviously want to ask me before this conversation gets any more uncomfortable for either of us," I said quite abruptly, surprising the both of us.

Alice finally lifted her face to meet my gaze and I noticed a flash of irritation cross it before she could change it to one of neutrality. She may have wanted to ask me something – and because of that she was trying to be less hostile – but she still obviously did not like me. I guess it was slightly comforting that some things didn't change.

Alice regarded me for a second before taking a deep breath and finally just saying what she had been wanting to since I got into the car with her. "I think Jasper's seeing someone else and not matter what _our_ personal relationship is, I'd really appreciate it if you could tell me the truth because no one deserves to be lied to by someone they're...by someone they care about."

Okay then...well that was blunt and to the point. I had no doubt that Alice was going to inadvertently reveal that she was in love with Jasper, but caught herself just in time. I wondered very briefly what Jasper had done – or neglected to do – to cause this suspicion. Had he been pulling disappearing acts on her too? Or had she somehow found out about the fact that he'd been in New York for a week before she knew about it? However, the steady gaze of Alice's never left me and I was aware that the longer I took to answer, the more suspicious she was going to be.

The answer was simple really. "Jasper's not seeing anyone else," I told her honestly. "He's not that guy."

Even though I didn't know what it was Jasper had done to arouse suspicion about his fidelity, I could honestly say that the Jasper Whitlock I was friends with would not cheat on Alice; Jasper wouldn't cheat on anyone. As Alice nodded in silent acceptance of what I'd said, a small voice in the back of my mind told me that the Jasper Whitlock I knew apparently was not the full story of the man. Had I unknowingly lied to Alice? I hoped not. I hoped that my character judgement of my friend, whatever he may have been hiding, was correct because Alice was right; no one deserved to be deceived in that way by the person that they loved.

No one.

* * *

A/N: A little ominous of an ending no? Did someone cheat on Edward? Ha...no. The answer to that question is no, just in case you were wondering. This Edward doesn't have any relationship dramas of that kind. Edward and Bella...well, I suppose that because they did so much talking before now that they've allowed themselves to do other things, they can't help themselves. Still...some control would be nice, no? Maybe none of you agree with me and are taking their side in the matter. Oooh...and James is back...but what happened to Ben? This chapter can raise more potential questions than a 'Lost' episode...okay no, actually, no, it can't. The Ben thing isn't central to the story and will be explained away probably in the next chapter.

Anyway, than you all for reading my little (or extremely lengthy) story. Thank you to everyone that reviews. I really appreciate the kind words and encouragement...they make me smile.


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